The Difference Between Embezzlement, Fraud, and Theft

I am an entrepreneur who has a trusted employee whom I entrusted to drive the company's inventory car. However, to make a long story short, the car went missing, and after investigating, I found out that the car was sold by my trusted employee.

In this case, I want to report my employee's actions. The question is, can these actions be categorized as embezzlement, fraud, or theft?

Perhaps we need to know the definition of embezzlement before discussing it further. According to the Indonesian Dictionary, embezzlement is an act that involves the process, method, and act of embezzling or misappropriating goods illegally. In a more specific sense, embezzlement can be explained as behavior that damages the trust of others by not fulfilling promises and not behaving well.

Lamintang and Djisman Samosir stated that the term embezzlement should be interpreted as "abuse of rights" or "abuse of trust." Van Haeringen, as quoted by Lamintang and Djisman Samosir, provides the understanding that the term "verduistering" or "embezzlement" means "making everything dark" or "preventing light from shining."

In Article 372 of the Criminal Code, embezzlement is defined as the act of a person who intentionally and unlawfully, possesses an item that is wholly or partially the property of another person and is under their control without a legitimate reason.

The Crime of Embezzlement consists of several elements, namely subjective and objective elements. The subjective element is the perpetrator's intention to embezzle another person's property as formulated in the article of law through the word "intentionally." Meanwhile, the objective elements consist of the element of anyone, the element of unlawful control, the element of an item, the element of partially or wholly owned by another person, and the element that the item is in their possession not because of a crime.

There are several types of Embezzlement in the Criminal Code Criminal Law (KUHP), including: embezzlement in basic form, petty embezzlement, aggravated embezzlement, embezzlement within the family, and embezzlement under Article 377. In addition, there are also other criminal acts concerning embezzlement, namely Articles 415 and 417 which are official misconducts regulated separately in Chapter XXVIII which regulates official misconducts.

Embezzlement in basic form is regulated in Article 372 of the Criminal Code, while petty embezzlement is regulated in Article 373 of the Criminal Code. Article 372 of the Criminal Code constitutes the crime of embezzlement in basic form, where a person intentionally and unlawfully claims as their own property that is wholly or partially owned by another person, but which is in their possession not because of a crime. Meanwhile, Article 373 of the Criminal Code, the crime of embezzlement with the same elements as Article 372 of the Criminal Code, but differs in that the embezzled item is not livestock and its value does not exceed twenty-five rupiah.