Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission Chairperson Teresita Herbosa, a member of that country’s Anti-Money Laundering Council, is sure that at least some of the money illegally taken from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) account at the Federal Reserve of New York will be recovered.
“I’m sure somehow, some of it will be recovered,” ABS-CBN News quoted Herbosa as saying yesterday.
Herbosa was tight-lipped about the investigation into the alleged laundering, saying she did not want to pre-empt the Philippine Senate hearing on the issue scheduled for today.
The Philippine Senate has started tracing where the stolen funds went next after slipping through the Philippines financial system, the Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Senator Serge Osmeña as saying yesterday.
Asked if the money had been remitted elsewhere, Osmeña replied that it was being traced.
“We have no idea where the money went as of this time,” the senator added.
Osmeña, chair of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies, said the Philippine Senate will also trace the four depositors who opened the US dollar bank accounts at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp which received the stolen money.
The accounts, under the names of Enrico Teodoro Vasquez, Alfred Santos Vergara, Michael Francisco Cruz and Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, received some $81 million believed to be BB funds stolen by hackers from its accounts at the New York Fed.
