Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 26 November 1965 in Baturaja, in the province of South Sumatra, Indonesia. Indonesian sources trace his family to Batu Panceh in Empat Lawang Regency, and he was widely known by the nickname Batara.

He trained at the Indonesian Police Academy and graduated in 1988, joining the Indonesian National Police as an investigator.

Bonaparte spent most of his career in criminal investigation (reserse). While serving as deputy chief of the Cengkareng police in West Jakarta, he was cast as Lieutenant Gusman, the main character of Pedang Keadilan (The Sword of Justice), a 1994 television drama about the lives of police officers produced in cooperation with the national police.

He was later appointed chief of police of Ogan Komering Ulu Regency in South Sumatra, and then deputy director of criminal investigation for the South Sumatra regional police. In 2009 he became director of criminal investigation for the Yogyakarta regional police. His directorate handled 97 cases in his first three months, including the discovery of thousands of counterfeit gas stoves and gas cylinders in Sleman, and at the end of his tenure he launched an operation against pirated and unlicensed software.

From 2011 he worked at the national Criminal Investigation Agency in Jakarta, first as head of a subdirectorate in the general crimes directorate and then in the unit that supervises civil service investigators. In 2015 he moved to the Police Academy as head of education administration, and in 2016 to the International Relations Division as head of the international conventions section.

On 20 July 2017 he was appointed secretary of the National Central Bureau, Interpol Indonesia, and in September 2017 he was promoted to brigadier general. In February 2020 he was named head of the International Relations Division of the national police and promoted to inspector general.

In mid-2020 it emerged that Djoko Tjandra, a businessman convicted over the Bank Bali affair and a fugitive since 2009, had been able to enter and leave Indonesia. Bonaparte was removed as head of the International Relations Division on 17 July 2020 for ethical and disciplinary misconduct, named a suspect in August and detained in October.

At his trial prosecutors said that intermediaries acting for Tjandra visited him at the Transnational Crime Center in April 2020, and that he received 200,000 Singapore dollars and a total of 370,000 US dollars in April and May. Letters from his division then informed the Ministry of Law and Human Rights that Tjandra's red notice data had been deleted. On 10 March 2021 the Jakarta Corruption Court found him guilty of accepting bribes and sentenced him to four years in prison and a fine of 100 million rupiah, more than prosecutors had sought. He described the verdict as a personal harassment. His appeal to the Jakarta High Court failed, and the Supreme Court rejected his final appeal in November 2021.

While held at the detention centre of the Criminal Investigation Agency in 2021, he assaulted Muhammad Kace, a fellow detainee facing blasphemy charges. On 15 September 2022 the South Jakarta District Court sentenced him to five months and fifteen days in prison for the assault.

He was released on parole on 17 April 2023. A police ethics commission hearing in August 2023 found that he had committed disgraceful conduct and imposed a demotion, a ruling he accepted without appeal.

Bonaparte was married, and according to Indonesian Wikipedia he had four children, one of whom followed him into the police. A friend who visited him the week before his death described being welcomed at his home by him and his wife.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on Sunday 18 October 2026 at 10.32 Western Indonesia Time, after an illness, aged 60. The exact place of death and the nature of the illness were not made public; his former lawyer, Putri Maya Rumanti, said she had been told by the family that he died after falling ill.

His death was confirmed to the press by Rumanti and by the former national police chief Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who offered his condolences and prayers for the family. Former colleagues including Commissioner General Chryshnanda Dwilaksana posted tributes.

He was to be buried at 9.00 on Monday 19 October 2026 at the Cikeas heroes' cemetery in Bogor, West Java, in a ceremony led by the serving head of the police International Relations Division, Inspector General Amur Chandra Juli Buana.

Bonaparte is remembered in Indonesia above all for the Djoko Tjandra red notice affair, one of the most damaging police corruption scandals of recent years, which brought the conviction of two police generals and prompted wide debate about accountability within the force. Before that, he had a three-decade career in criminal investigation and international police cooperation, and an early turn as the face of a police television drama.