Wowon

They worked overseas to build a better future. Back home, someone promised to multiply their savings.

Then three members of a family died in a rented house.

Bekasi, January 2023.

Ai Maimunah and her two sons are among five people found collapsed inside. Two others survive. What first appears to be a household poisoning soon raises a more disturbing question.

Was someone preparing for these deaths before they happened?

The inquiry leads toward Ai's husband, Wowon Erawan, and two men connected to him: Solihin and Dede Solehudin.

Around them, investigators uncover another network-women working abroad, money sent home, extraordinary promises, and an elusive figure called Aki Banyu whose instructions carry weight.

For the women sending money, the stakes are personal. Every transfer represents work performed far from home and plans for the families they left behind.

Now police must determine where that money went.

As the investigation moves from Bekasi to Cianjur, buried remains force earlier deaths back into question. Familiar relationships become difficult to interpret. Accounts conflict. The distance between what people believed and what investigators can establish grows increasingly consequential.

In Wowon: The Money Multiplication Murders, Jun Niel follows the case through financial tracing, forensic findings, testimony, and courtroom challenges.

At its center are people whose trust had practical consequences-for their savings, their families, and their lives.

The promises brought money into the network. What would following that money reveal about the deaths?

Reader's Note:
An independently readable nonfiction volume in the Indonesia: Behind the Crime series. This account distinguishes police allegations, defendant statements, reported forensic findings, and judicial conclusions. It preserves the distinction between the broader investigation into nine attributed deaths and the three Bekasi murders adjudicated in the proceedings discussed. Contains discussion of poisoning, fraud, domestic violence, child death, and recovered human remains. Intended for adult readers.