Hi. I'm Katie from the VICE office in Brooklyn.
In this episode of VICE International,
our friends over at VICE Indonesia investigate a cult
that claims to magically end people's problems with debt,
a proposition that is attracting followers from all over the world.
This is Indonesian Debt Cult.
It was about three years ago, I saw a video
and soon as I saw it, I knew he was the one
that was going to take us into this new world and build this new earth.
With inequality growing exponentially,
people around the world have assumed massive debts over the past decades.
But what if someone could magically make all your debts go away?
In Indonesia, a mysterious cult with the impressive name,
Swissindo World Trust International Orbit,
promises to do just that
and has attracted a large following all around the world.
The group is led by this man, Soegihartonotonegoro,
who calls himself M1.
He presents himself as a godlike figure
who can erase the world's debt.
To find out the truth behind this bizarre story,
Vice Indonesia correspondent, Arzia,
traveled to visit the Swissindo Headquarters in Cirebon.
We just arrived in Cirebon, the city is smaller than Jakarta.
It's home to Swissindo and we're off to see the leader right now.
Well, this is a pretty normal looking housing complex.
But somewhere in here is Swissindo's headquarters.
So it's so weird because everyone's like looking at us.
Like all eyes on us.
We were surprised to find Swissindo based in a cluster of unassuming
small buildings in the outskirts in Cirebon.
Followers travel here from all around the world.
Once they join the organization, they are assigned official Swissindo titles.
Kimarie Teter, designated Prime Minister of Love for the
United States, left California because she believes the leader,
whom she calls Papa, would not only change the world,
but erase all her issues with debt, which she has battled for years.
What happened was the IRS was bullying me.
I mean, I felt literally like I was a criminal.
All of a sudden, I have a gangster calling me and telling me,
"You need to pay this debt."
And I'm like, "hold on a second." I literally had no option.
So,
for me, I started reaching out. I had a few friends in the
entertainment industry who are patriots who told me,
"Well, we got a lot of education ahead of you,
but here's what we found and they have a remedy."
And what I did was I sent my birth certificate in.
It cost me three months of education and $400.
Forty-five days later,
the account at the IRS was closed.
And it disappeared.
It worked.
It actually worked, $10,000 gone.
IRS never contacted me again about it.
So what's happening now is we have someone coming forward
to bring the collateral and the substance and the remedy
and no one believes it.
They can hardly wrap their mind around it.
Why do you deserve to have
a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of debt erased?
You get to have six million dollars in a trust account.
How does that make you feel?
Kimarie's story was hard to believe
and she didn't supply any proof for her claims
but her faith in the movement seemed unshakeable.
Swissindo had us seriously confused.
So to untangle the contradictions in the group's claims, we went online.
The group's complex mythology combines various worldwide
conspiracies extending from pre-colonial Indonesia
to the JFK assassination and an encounter with aliens.
Here's the simple version.
Swissindo believes the ancient kingdoms of Indonesia pulled
their wealth to provide the world with a standard living wage.
Over centuries, a nefarious global conspiracy has been working
to deny the people this inheritance.
M1 says he is a descendant of the ancient kings.
And is heir to their fortune,
he has access to a giant hidden cash of gold and platinum.
It is large enough to give every man, woman, and child
six million dollars when he finally decides to spread it around.
Swissindo's global followers hold weekly online meetings
to check on the progress of their revolution
and share their dedication to the cause.
Looks like everyone else here are searching for answers.
I was feeling very depressed and I was looking for
a way out through one of the bapaks [fathers].
I knew he was the one that was going to take us into this place,
into this new world, and build this new earth.
Finally, it was our turn to meet M1 face to face
surrounded by a rapt audience of his followers.
What's wrong with the way debt works in the world?
Let me give you an example. If you owe $1,000,
you have to pay back $3,000.
No mater how many years it takes.
Ten, five, whatever.
It might be your $1,000 is used up already.
The $1,000 is used, you've given them $2,000 as profit, right?
Then you have to start again from scratch.
This is what creates the system of slavery in this world.
There are people who are working in Jakarta everyday.
For example, working overtime, morning, noon, and night but they are still saddled with debt.
Right? The debt collector still comes after them.
Meanwhile, money is just sheets of paper.
While human beings come from sperm.
That's why we must stand up for human rights.
Swissindo claims that it can erase debt by issuing a very official
seeming special certificate that shows the group covering the debt
out of its bottomless riches.
But Indonesia's Financial Crime Agency, OJK, denies that.
Swissindo is currently under investigation for fraud
as more and more debtors are presenting the certificates
to local banks.
Asked about the investigation,
M1's aura of benevolence quickly disappeared.
OJK made a big mistake by condemning Swissindo.
and calling us illegal.
If you don't want to make peace, I am ready to issue a statement of war
to the world.
What statement of war?
- Anything? - For instance?
Nuclear? Why waste time creating nuclear weapons if they're not being used?
The biggest mystery about Swissindo
is the status of its supposed wealth.
Asked to account for it and one quickly redirected the conversation.
How and where does this wealth come from? Where is it?
Now, if I told you, wouldn't you put a gun to my head?
That's why it's complicated.
But even when I tried to bring this up openly and peacefully, they still antagonized me
and told me that it was illegal.
Let's see some evidence, and a gun for each of us.
Whether out of paranoia or justified legal concerns,
M1 claimed he had too many enemies to leave his compound.
So two very enthusiastic senior members of the group
took us on a tour of a nearby Javanese palace
that they say proves Swissindo's claims to royalty and wealth.
First off, humans must be freed from debt.
When we're freed from debt, we can return to our natural state
as perfect human beings,
as kings of ourselves.
That's what Bapak first returns to us.
We're heading up to King Solomon's grave.
M1 said that he actually has some kind of bloodline connection
with King Solomon and we're going to go see the grave right now.
Our tour guides arranged for us to enter the grave of a sultan,
a sacred site that was usually closed to visitors.
Any request for explanations of the connection between M1
and the sultan's bloodline were answered with vague evasions
as they insisted the proof was too obvious to be questioned.
Can you explain the connection between M1 and King Solomon?
- Maybe let Pak Sino (M1) explain that. - Yes, let him do that. We can watch the video later.
- It can be... - It can be explained later.
We don't have the right to explain history. We might get it wrong.
But is there really an ancestral line connecting him to the wealth?
Yes.
He's the successor. M1 holds all the power now.
All the kingdoms in the world are his.
Later we'll talk to him. It's all in the video he has.
We can watch the video later.
The visit to the grave did not offer any proof that would makes
Swissindo's strange story more believable.
What does it all mean?
In some ways, Swissindo's appeal is clear.
The group offers an attractive story for people looking for meaning
or those desperately in debt searching for a solution.
But if you look closer,
the grand theories of conspiracy and revolution don't exactly make sense
and seem to hide the real picture behind the group's activities.
This is a video we received from the manager of a local bank branch.
In it, a group of men who claimed to be with Swissindo are trying
to intimidate the bank into writing off a follower's debt.
They acted like thugs.
They came and tried to intimidate us into doing what they wanted.
They tried to stop our staff from collecting debts.
Members came wearing flashy jackets, looking tough, in order to scare us.
They tried to look like a group with authority.
Look here, there was almost physical contact.
They banged on the table, causing trouble like that.
The branch manager had stacks of files
documenting his run-ins with Swissindo.
This is a statement to our branch in Graha Wangi,
saying that the debtor has handed their debt to Swissindo.
So the money Swissindo says they have isn't in the bank?
It doesn't exist.
Including in BRI, which is one of the state-owned banks?
Swissindo said there are billions of dollars in their BRI account, but that account is fake.
A fake account?
The account number they have is wrong.
Here's an example. This is not our account number.
Ours is 15 digits, this is only 10.
So this statement on the legality of Swissindo makes us laugh.
because legal documents just don't look like this, it doesn't make sense.
At the same time, we are furious because this is not normal.
The bank manager suggested we speak with someone who went to Swissindo
for debt forgiveness and could describe the experience firsthand.
What personal experience do you have with Swissindo?
At that time, I owed a debt to the bank.
A friend told me about Swissindo.
I was asked to pay an administration fee of Rp 1 million ($75) in advance,
that includes operational costs.
They said I only had to wait and let them do the work.
I kept asking, "Whose money is this? Where is the money from?
How come it can be just given away?"
"Oh this has to do with..." They said a lot of things.
They said it belongs to Sukarno, that it's available in some kind of Swiss bank.
And it has become the people's asset, that's why it can be used
to pay off their debts.
I thought I was taken care of, and there's no harm in this.
I didn't want to know where the money came from.
But as the days and months passed, I waited for news but nothing came.
So what is Swissindo?
Its critics say the group is a pyramid scheme masking as a cult.
Swissindo claims this is a lie,
an attempt by its enemies to undermine the group's great works
yet again.
Whatever the truth, one thing is certain.
As long as people are getting screwed by global capitalism,
those on the losing side will be looking for a way out
and there will always be charismatic
gurus, prophets, and reincarnated royalty telling us
they alone have the answer to all our problems
as long as we can suspend our doubts and make one easy payment.
So I'm sitting here.
I'm just going to keep marching, you know?
I'm just going to keep marching.
At this point, they're going to hear it, they're not going to hear it,
it doesn't matter, I' here. I'm on task.
I work for the mission and I'm not leaving
until everyone knows about this.