Investigators say Thomas violated the law by issuing a permit to a private company to import 105,000 tons of raw sugar, a product that would then be processed into white sugar for domestic consumption.

“The imports took place despite a previous ministerial coordination meeting concluding that there was already a surplus of products that year,” Abdul Qohar, director of investigations at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General for Extraordinary Crimes, said during from a press briefing on Tuesday.

“The permit was also issued without any approval from a ministerial coordination meeting or recommendation from relevant institutions,” he continued.

Thomas, who served as trade minister between August 2015 and July 2016, was also suspected of ordering state trading company PT Perusahaan Perdagangan Indonesia (PPI) to work with domestic sugar producers to import 300 000 additional tonnes of raw sugar. The decision was taken to meet national demand and stabilize the domestic price of the product.

If the goal was to meet demand and stabilize the price of the product, PPI should have imported white sugar directly from abroad, rather than doing so through private companies, according to the AGO.

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This decision resulted in 400 billion rupees ($25.50 million) in state losses in the form of profits for eight private companies that should have gone into the PPI coffers.