Bangladesh close to recovering $15m

A Bangladesh central bank team visiting Manila to recover $81m stolen from its account in New York said it was close to getting back $15m of the loot frozen by the Philippines, but first has to prove ownership of the cash to its hosts. Cyber criminals tried to steal nearly $1bn from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February, and succeeded in transferring $81m to four accounts at Manila’s Rizal Commercial Banking Corp, which was then laundered through the city’s casinos, according to investigators. Only about $18m, including $2.7m frozen by the Philippines’ casino regulator, has been accounted for. The Philippines’ Department of Justice (DoJ) has asked the Bangladesh Bank delegation to file a legal document staking its claim to $15m of that, but the casino money will have to be pursued separately, two sources close to the visiting team told Reuters. “We are in the final stages of recovering the $15m, but for the rest we hope a [Philippines] senate hearing on the issue resumes so that we can get to know more details about the case,” said John Gomes, Bangladesh’s ambassador to the Philippines, who is helping the bank representatives on a four-day visit to Manila that ended yesterday. The last Philippines Senate hearing into the heist ended in May as a new government came to power under President Rodrigo Duterte. No date has been announced for a resumption. Gomes said late on Thursday he hoped the $15m would be returned in a month. Talking to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday, Bangladesh Bank Executive Director Subhankar Saha said a portion of the heist money has been deposited to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) of Philippines. The visiting central bank team was completing some legal process to bring back the money, he said. Although the amount deposited by casinos to the AMLC would be brought back soon, legal complications meant that more time was needed to recover the rest, Subhankar added. The Bangladeshi delegation consists of Debaprosad Debnath and Abdul Rab from Bangladesh Bank’s financial intelligence unit, and Bangladesh Bank lawyer Ajmalul Hossain. They met with officials from the DoJ, the AMLC, and the Philippines central bank. The team has prepared an affidavit citing a letter by the New York Fed to the Philippines’ central bank, in which the Fed said the money was stolen from Bangladesh Bank’s account. The affidavit will be given to the DoJ to file with a court, the sources said. Bangladeshi officials say the money was able to disappear into the casino industry because of systemic failures at RCBC, not just individual error by some of its officers. RCBC said the transfers were made based on authenticated instructions over payments network SWIFT, and the hackers had used stolen Bangladesh Bank credentials. RCBC’s then president Lorenzo Tan told a Senate hearing in March, however, that there was “some judgment error from the people on the ground.”Prove itRicardo J Paras III, chief state counsel of the DoJ, told Reuters that it has already drafted court documents to begin recovery of the $15m, but it was important for Bangladesh to prove it is their money. The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), a government body that regulates casinos in the country, has promised to cooperate with Bangladesh Bank to help it recover the $2.7m it has frozen, Gomes said. “The money is with Solaire (Resort and Casino),” PAGCOR President Alfredo Lim said. “It will put us in a bad light if the money is not immediately released to them.” Solaire, operated by Bloomberry Resorts Corp, has said about $29m of the funds came to the casino and most was transferred to the accounts of two junket operators. Solaire did not immediately return requests for comment. The Bangladeshi sources said they were writing to President Duterte, whom Gomes has already met, formally seeking his help to recover all of the stolen money. Duterte spokesman Ernesto Abella said Bangladesh Bank should reach out to the president soon. The sources said Bangladesh Bank would take RCBC to court if these efforts fail to bear fruit. It is relying on internal RCBC documents to buttress its assertion that the bank’s Jupiter Street branch in Manila ignored suspicions raised by some RCBC officials when the money was first remitted to the accounts on February 5, and then delayed acting on requests from RCBC’s head office to freeze the funds on Feb 9. “Going to court instead of the media and various Philippine government agencies is the proper procedure,” RCBC said in a statement. “Bangladesh should finish its own investigation to determine who the culprits were before concluding the theft was an outside job, without fault on their part.”