First Resources had first committed to \u201czero deforestation\u201d<\/a> in 2015 and was able to access markets closed to unsustainable palm oil through its RSPO membership. But through its apparent control of so-called \u201cshadow companies,\u201d the theory went, the Fangiono family that owned First Resources was simultaneously able to keep expanding into rainforests.<\/p>\n A complaint alleging that the Fangionos controlled two other groups \u2014 Ciliandry Angki Abadi and FAP Agri \u2014 was first taken up by the RSPO in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n In November 2023, The Gecko Project \u2014 together with media partners in Europe, the U.S. and Indonesia \u2014 published<\/a> an investigation based on interviews with more than a dozen former employees of both First Resources and the shadow companies. Several had worked for a group of companies known as New Borneo Agri \u2014 since rebranded Kalimantan Agro Sejahtera, or KAS \u2014 that had collectively cleared more rainforest to plant oil palms than any other group in Southeast Asia, over the past half-decade.<\/p>\n These employees regarded First Resources, FAP Agri and KAS not as separate groups but as different divisions of a single corporation. They had good reason to see it this way: some said they were recruited by First Resources, then sent to work at FAP Agri or KAS; others said they were moved freely between them by their superiors. They claimed that annual \u201ckick-off\u201d and budget meetings for the groups were all held together, our investigation found.<\/p>\n Whether they worked for First Resources, KAS or FAP Agri, the employees said they reported to the same regional heads. They said their work was ultimately overseen by Cik Sigih and Ciliandra Fangiono, the brothers whose family holds a majority stake in First Resources, and who serve as deputy CEO and CEO respectively. Some said they had seen the brothers make site visits to KAS plantations.<\/p>\n In response to the allegations, First Resources said that KAS was \u201cnot a subsidiary, an associated company, nor a related party.\u201d Its board later restated that position in a statement<\/a> to the Singapore Stock Exchange adding that it \u201chad not purchased any palm oil products from, nor entered into any other transactions\u201d with KAS.<\/p>\n In January 2024, KAS was added to the RSPO complaint. But in 2025 the RSPO Complaints Panel concluded, based on an \u201cindependent investigation\u201d it had commissioned, that \u201cthere appears to be insufficient evidence to establish a link to uphold the allegation\u201d that First Resources controlled KAS. The RSPO noted in its decision<\/a> that KAS is majority-owned by a company in the British Virgin Islands whose shareholders are protected by secrecy laws. As such, its owners remained hidden.<\/p>\n The new investigation that casts further light on this comes from the Rainforest Action Network (RAN).<\/p>\n In early 2026, RAN followed palm oil leaving KAS plantations in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, to see where it would end up. Trucks and barges from different plantations repeatedly converged on a single point, according to RAN\u2019s fieldwork and interviews with staff on the ground: a bulking facility and jetty on the Mahakam River. That facility is operated by First Resources and even appears<\/a> in one of its RSPO audits. From there, RAN found, the palm oil was shipped downstream to refineries in a \u201cfleet\u201d of barges owned by the Fangionos.<\/p>\n Once you get across the logistical and technical challenge of tracking barges and trucks across Borneo, the picture appears simple \u2014 and brazen. In RAN\u2019s view, it shows First Resources and the shadow groups \u201coperate as a coordinated economic enterprise with integrated supply chains.\u201d<\/p>\n If you\u2019re still skeptical, then consider the evidence that emerged in a 2023 court case.<\/p>\n In that case, a truck driver was convicted of attempting to embezzle from a tanker carrying palm oil from a KAS mill. Where was the palm oil being delivered? To the same First Resources facility identified by RAN. According to the court testimony of multiple employees from both KAS and First Resources subsidiaries, palm oil was routinely trucked from the shadow company to that facility over several months in 2023.<\/p>\n After our investigation was published in November 2023, several consumer goods firms in Europe and the U.S. dropped First Resources as a supplier<\/a>. Many more withheld their judgment, stating that they would await the outcome of the RSPO case that \u2014 by that stage \u2014 had been dragging on for more than two years. That included the palm oil trading giants through which most palm oil is channeled<\/a>.<\/p>\n The ruling has now been made and some of them have treated it as an exoneration of First Resources. All the traders that told us they were awaiting the outcome of that decision \u2014 those who responded to our most recent enquiries \u2014 said they had kept First Resources in their supply chains.<\/p>\n First Resources itself has declined to fully engage with the evidence unearthed by the new investigation or the court records, insisting<\/a> instead in response to RAN that \u201csimilar allegations\u201d were already \u201cinvestigated and adjudicated by the RSPO through its formal complaints system, culminating in a final decision that closed the case.\u201d Its position remains that the allegations are false.<\/p>\n The decision by First Resources\u2019 customers to await that judgment and to accept the ruling, means that despite their commitments to sustainability, they remain in business with a corporation that still stands accused of widespread deforestation.<\/p>\n The shadow companies have cleared more than 9,000 hectares (22,200 acres) of rainforest since 2021<\/a>. Deforestation continued through 2026, after the RSPO dismissed the appeal against its ruling, according to data published by Nusantara Atlas and analyzed by The Gecko Project. This is within a landscape with \u201cincredible biodiversity\u201d, home to orangutans, gibbons, sun bears and helmeted hornbills.<\/p>\n It remains to be seen whether those customers will be satisfied by First Resources\u2019 argument that these issues have now been adjudicated, or more compelled by RAN\u2019s evidence \u2014 and the court records \u2014 to stop doing business with the group.<\/p>\n This is, no doubt, a headache for the consumer goods firms that just want to agree to a set of rules and have everyone abide by them. That returns us to the point at the top of this article: The system is only as strong as the way it polices its boundaries. Did the handling of the complaint really amount to a \u201cthorough investigation and comprehensive assessment\u201d, as one commodity trader described it to us; one that First Resources beseeched RAN to heed, \u201cIn the interest of righteousness\u201d?<\/p>\n If this is a system on which commodity traders moving billions of dollars of palm oil into Europe rely, what did the RSPO-appointed investigators actually look at?<\/p>\n Our own investigation relied not only on the testimony of more than a dozen former employees who independently corroborated the same picture, it also unearthed documentary evidence.<\/p>\n This showed<\/a> that the sole director of the British Virgin Islands company that owns KAS was, as of October 2023, a member of the Fangiono family. He was also employed by First Resources. In 2019, a woman was granted authority to act as the legal representative of the KAS shareholders. She was also employed<\/a> as a legal officer for First Resources. We now know that KAS was routinely shipping palm oil to a First Resources facility during and after the complaint.<\/p>\n In other words, there is compelling documentary evidence pointing to First Resources\u2019 control of KAS and to the integration of the two companies\u2019 supply chains.<\/p>\n It is possible that the RSPO-appointed investigator arrived at the correct conclusion based on the question they were required to answer, the limits of the evidence they were asked to consider, the threshold of proof they were required to reach or all three. If so, there was a fundamental flaw in the parameters of the investigation. That in turn leads to the conclusion that the complaints process as a whole was not fit for purpose.<\/p>\n It resulted in a decision that First Resources is now using to dismiss new evidence that it is connected to some of the most destructive palm oil companies in Indonesia. First Resources was effectively cleared \u2014 in its interpretation, at least \u2014 and within months, RAN found palm oil flowing from the shadow companies to its facility.<\/p>\n If there is an innocent explanation for all this evidence \u2014 why a First Resources lawyer was appointed to represent KAS shareholders; why former employees independently regarded the companies as one group; why the Fangiono brothers visited KAS plantations; why a family member was director of the BVI company that owns KAS; why KAS palm oil was routinely delivered to a First Resources facility; why Fangiono barges moved it downriver \u2014 I for one would be interested to hear it.<\/p>\n But First Resources has, beyond its denials, offered no proper explanation publicly. And for the RSPO, it\u2019s \u201cinsufficient evidence\u201d.<\/p>\n Tom Johnson is director of The Gecko Project<\/a>, an investigative journalism initiative established to shine a light on the corruption driving land grabs and the destruction of tropical rainforests.<\/p>\n Investigations into Singapore palm oil firm find family ties to Borneo deforesters<\/a><\/p>\n Cite this articleTom Johnson (2026). The RSPO closed the case on First Resources. Indonesian forests kept falling for palm oil (commentary). Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.66709\/news-334809<\/a> <\/p>\n ![\"Women](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/52654496773_018634236d_k.jpg\")
<\/a>Women workers in an industrial oil palm plantation in Indonesia spray herbicide around the trees. Image by \u00a9ILO\/Fauzan Azhima via Flickr<\/a> (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>).<\/p>\n![\"Oil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/35979109304_a76441ae4a_k.jpg\")
<\/a>Several workers that The Gecko Project interviewed had worked for a group of companies known as New Borneo Agri \u2014 since rebranded Kalimantan Agro Sejahtera, or KAS \u2014 that had collectively cleared more rainforest to plant oil palms than any other group in Southeast Asia, over the past half-decade. Image byCooke Vieira\/CIFOR via Flickr<\/a> (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>).
\nCase closed, palm oil flows<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Image_2.jpg\")
<\/a>A palm oil plantation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.\u00a0 Image by Ryan Woo\/CIFOR via Flickr<\/a> (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>).
\n\u2018In the interests of righteousness\u2019<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Image_9-jambi_220400-2-768x512-1.jpg\")
<\/a>A palm oil plantation in Sumatra, where industrial agribusiness has contributed heavily to tropical deforestation. Image by Rhett A. Butler\/Mongabay.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/ac92916167b81b5a855d3d759fe282594214d7dbed857c15015dda45078f1953.png\")
<\/p>\n