A Dhaka Court has approved a plea of the Criminal Investigation Department of Police for conducting the forensic examination of three hard drives which were seized from the Bangladesh Bank earlier.
A 20-member special team under the CID is investigating the sensational case filed over the cyber heist at Bangladesh’s central bank last month that netted $101 million.
The court of Metropolitan Magistrate Md Mahbubur Rahman passed the order on Tuesday, responding to a plea filed by the CID team.
Earlier in the day, Additional Superintendent of Police Md Raihan placed the seized hard drives before the court and sought its order to get those examined at CID forensic laboratory, SI Jalaluddin, GRO of the court, told the Dhaka Tribune.
In early February, some $101m of the Bangladesh Bank funds kept with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was withdrawn illegally allegedly by hackers who had broken into the SWIFT system of the central bank.
The laundered money was moved via transfer requests, with about $81m ending up in four bank accounts in the Philippines. The other $20m went to an account in Sri Lanka. Another $850 million was supposed to be transferred to a personal bank account in the Philippines, but was blocked by the authorities.
Bangladesh Bank Joint Director (accounts and budgeting department) Jubair Bin Huda filed the case against unidentified people with Motijheel police on March 15. It was filed under section 4 of the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2012 (amended 2015), section 54 of the Information Technology Act 2006 and section 379 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
CID started their work on March 16 and visited the Bangladesh Bank Headquarters. They spoke to senior officials of several departments of Bangladesh Bank and seized some computers, printers and server for the seek of investigation.
The CID team is investigating the case jointly with help from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) of the Philippines is also investigating the case.