City officials often have sticky fingers.
I don’t think “bertangan panjang” is the correct idiom. According to KBBI and a Q/A website, “panjang tangan” means “thief” or “a person who likes stealing”. I also googled “bertangan panjang”, and all articles and images are related to long arms or hands. “Wanita Bertangan Panjang Dianggap Lebih Memikat” is a good example from a national newspaper Kompas.com.
The English translation was updated by the admin on May 14, 2022.
Old: City officials often have sticky fingers.
New: City officials are often long-armed.
Now, the new one matches the Indonesian sentence linguistically. But it doesn’t make sense in the real world.
Embezzlement is widely seen among public officers in some developing countries. But the governments don’t hire employees with long arms… As I explained earlier, the Indonesian sentence is the one to update.