The problem deals, which involve a cast of the rich and famous, as well as the poor and unknown, will reveal nothing new to anyone familiar with the way business is done in Australia’s northern neighbour, but might dissuade newcomers from plunging in too quickly.

That coal explorers are rushing to Indonesia is not in doubt, given the decline of Australia’s appeal as an investment destination thanks to its tax blizzard.

If the mining tax doesn’t get you, the carbon tax will – and that’s before considering the archaic approvals process plus the withering combination of red, green, and black tape.

It is the combination of negative factors at home with surging global demand for coal that accelerated a trek north sometime last year, best encapsulated in a mid-June headline in Melbourne’s leading newspaper, The Age: “Indonesian boom from Aussie tax gloom”

There is no doubt that the headline, and story, were on the money, especially as most potential investors had forgotten past problems with Indonesia, such as the infamous Busang gold-salting case against the Canadian explorer, Bre-X, a dud deal which cost investors $4.5 billion thanks to corporate fraud and government complicity.

Or, as The Age reported in June’s story: “Indonesia’s status as a destination for mining and exploration dollars post-Busang has all but been restored”

Really? Well not really, actually, as can be seen by what’s been happening recently in the Indonesian coal business.

The first example involves the fabulously wealthy Rothschilds, a family of bankers who have funded half the countries of Europe over the past 200 years, as well as countless African, Asian and South American states.

This time around a young Nathaniel Rothschild has plunged deep into Indonesian coal via a London-listed company called BUMI plc.

Until recently BUMI was a cash-rich shell controlled by Nat Rothschild and Indonesia’s powerful Bakrie family. Together they planned to cash in on China’s insatiable demand for energy in all its forms, with BUMI claiming to be Indonesia’s biggest coal producer, accounting for 22% of the country’s exports last year.

Unfortunately, the Bakrie family has had a few banking problems, owing a number of banks billions of dollars for an assortment of deals in their sprawling conglomerate. One of the loans, for a cool $US1.3 billion, was called in by the Swiss bank, Credit Suisse.

To solve that problem, the Bakrie family sold a 23.8% stake in BUMI to another Indonesian company called PT Borneo Lumbung Energi & Metals, conveniently controlled by another rich family led by Samin Tan, a former partner in the regional office of the accounting firm, Deloitte and a man who had wanted to acquire a stake in BUMI for some time.

What’s happening with BUMI and how the various shareholders work together is causing considerable interest in London because it involves a member of the Rothschild family and because young Nat might soon find himself pitted against two powerful Indonesian families who, in time, might not like having a European partner.

For guidance on this matter consider the second Indonesian coal case, which involves lesser players and a company with London and Australian connections.

Churchill Mining had been a high flyer on London’s AIM, trading around 120 pence in February thanks to investor interest in its East Kutai project on the island of Borneo, which is said to contain billions of tonnes of JORC-code compliant resource.

Today, Churchill is trading at 11 pence. Why? Because an Indonesian company called Nusantara, which had dropped the tenements containing the coal in 2006 (with Churchill then picking them up), suddenly laid a fresh claim on the ground in 2008.

Astonishingly, the government official in charge of licensing proceeded to issue two licences on the same ground and said they could run concurrently.

Ho Ho! What a joke dual licences turned out to be, because as soon as Churchill said it was ready to start mining Nusantara lodged an objection, Indonesia introduced new mining laws, and all licences were re-classified with Churchill in danger of losing everything.

Naturally, a legal tussle is now underway but given that Nusantara has the backing of powerful Indonesia families and any argument must be heard in an Indonesian court – and that the friendly official who issued dual licences appears to have disappeared – it might prove to be a fruitless fight.

Does all that throw some fresh light on the merits of moving from tax-heavy Australia (where you lose a chunk of your profits) to deeply dodgy Indonesia, where you risk losing the lot?