APRIL’s wood supply has been repeatedly involved with legally questionable practices. As an example, in 2005 Jikalahari released a report indicating that the concessions held by PT. RAPP in the Serapung and Padang Island overlapped with a number of other concessions by companies and cooperatives with definite permits from the Ministry of Foresty. According to Walhi, “APRIL has knowingly been pulping rainforest wood in concessions whose licenses were issued through corrupt practices and areas considered off limits within the country’s national land use planning law”.

A bigger scandal emerged however in February 2007, when Riau Police started to investigate APRIL and APP subsidiaries for illegal logging. The police suspected the companies committed document fraud in several administrative tasks such as in type and size of timber reporting, logging result reporting and in paying provision and rehabilitation fees. According to the investigation, APP and APRIL subsidiaries used corruption to obtained concession licenses to other logging permits from District Heads or from the Forestry Service.

APRIL was found to be paying for illegal logs: a least 6.4 billion Rupuah (US$684,800) to exploit forests using illegal permits issued by Pelalawan Regent Tengku Azmun Jaafar. Meanwhile, three Riau Forestry Agency chiefs that awarded concessions to APRIL have been sentenced to prison for corruption. A former official of the Pelalawan forestry office called Hambali testified that he and his partner had received money from PT Persada Karya Sejati (PKS), a subsidiary of APRIL's controlled company PT RAPP that allegedly took over two plots of forest land illegally allocated for their two companies in 2005. Another supplier of APRIL, PT. SRL obtained a legally dubious concession, and almost completed its deforestation. In December 2008, the investigation involved high ranks in the Forestry Ministry and was abruptly closed after the Riau police chef was replaced.

In 2011 however, the newly established Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force re-opened the case, and four government officers were jailed for corruption while issuing forest licenses: two former Riau Forestry Service heads (Asral Racman and Syuhada Tasman) and two district heads (Tengku Azmun Jaafar and Arwin AS). According to the investigations, ten of twelve APRIL wood suppliers in Kampar obtained their licenses in 2002 and 2003 from district heads, who were convicted for corruption while awarding these licences. Despite this conviction, the concessions have been not withdrawn, and they are still supplying APRIL plants.
Now the Ministry of Environment plans to sue the 14 pulpwood companies involved in the investigations in 2007, for environmental destruction and damages: 2,067 trillion rupiah (equivalent to US$217 billion), as estimated by the Judicial Mafia.

Logging Ramin forests
Ramin (Gonystylus spp) is a valuable tropical tree species internationally protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), an international agreement aimed to protect endangered species. In 2001, the Indonesian Government banned all products derived from the ramin tree and its processed product.
Despite this valuable wood not being suited for paper production, APRIL was found logging precious ramin forests to supply their mills. In March 2011 an investigation by Eyes on the Forest exposed approximately 2000 hectares of ramin in forests that were felled by PT Sumatera Riang Lestari (SRL), an APRIL affiliated company in the Rupat Island. The company is bound by law to preserve ramin trees, but the investigation by Eyes on the Forest showed that the company just set aside small-diameter trees. In April 2012, PT Sumatera Riang Lestari was still logging ramin, as confirmed again by Eyes on the Forest investigators, who documented ramin trees felled by the APRIL timber supplier.