Indonesian official behind food poisoning-plagued meals program arrested

Dadan Hindayana escorted by officers from the Attorney General's Office and Indonesian military personnel. (AFP: Bay Ismoyo)

The former head of an Indonesian government agency, responsible for the rollout of President Prabowo Subianto's enormous free school meals program has been arrested by the Attorney General's office, following an investigation into alleged corruption.

The arrest of Dadan Hindayana comes a day after he was sacked as head of the National Nutrition Agency, or BGN.

An armoured vehicle carrying Dadan Hindayana following his questioning over alleged misappropriation. (AFP: Bay Ismoyo)

Dadan Hindayana, along with two other officials from the agency, were led out of the Attorney General Department offices on Wednesday night in handcuffs and into a waiting police van.

Within minutes of eating a school lunch, Aldo Revaldo started getting very sick. All around him, one by one, his classmates were also succumbing to a painful and overwhelming illness.

The other two men arrested were Retired Major General Lodewyk Pusung and Police Brigadier General Sony Sonjaya, deputies of BGN who were also sacked on Tuesday night.

They were wearing pink vests, used by corruption investigators to identify someone as a suspect in a criminal investigation.

Investigators from the Attorney General's Office spent the day raiding BGN's headquarters in Jakarta.

The Free Nutritious Meals program, known locally as MBG, was a key election promise of President Prabowo Subianto, helping him storm to power in 2024.

Two girls eating free school meals at a school in Jakarta, Indonesia, November 2025. (ABC News: Tim Swanston)

The program, which is budgeted to cost about 270 trillion IDR ($20 billion) this year, has courted controversy, with one education monitor estimating tens of thousands of children had gotten sick from food poisoning.

The three men have been named as suspects in alleged corruption while carrying out their duties as heads of the BGN.

In a press conference, the Attorney General's Director of Investigation into Special Crimes, Syarief Sulaiman, said his office had evidence the men manipulated the procurement process and awarded contracts to foundations to run kitchens, when they weren't qualified to do so.

He said many of those foundations were owned by employees of the nutrition agency, including the three senior leaders themselves.

Students who were victims of food poisoning after eating their free meal menu. (ANTARA: Abdan Syakura)

Tens of thousands of kitchens have been set up by foundations nationwide to oversee the ambitious school meals