WHO would have thought that the confiscation of a container of shoes belonging to Siti Hartati Murdaya’s company at the end of last March would have caused such a furor? The lady tycoon became enraged. Intervention came from the Presidential Palace, leaving Customs & Excise officials on edge. At the center of this storm are around 40,000 pairs of shoes worth less than Rp10 billion.

For a businessperson of Hartati’s caliber, ranking 16th on t