About $6.9m out of the $81m that was stolen from Bangladesh Bank in February are still at casinos in the Philippines and may still be recovered, the Philippine Senate heard in testimony yesterday.
Kam Sin Wong, a Chinese junket operator known in the Philippines as Kim Wong, told the hearing that the $81m was remitted by two casino junket agents and gamblers – Beijing resident Gao Shuhua whom he has known for eight years and a Macau resident named Ding Zhize he just met in February, reports AP.
Wong volunteered to return $4.63m dollars that remains in a junket account in Solaire Resort and Casino, and another $863,000 still in Midas Hotel casino under the account of his company, Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co.
Wong said Gao also paid him $9.71m for a loan that covered Gao’s losses in an earlier gambling spree in the country. Wong said if compelled to do so, he can also return that money.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Wong as saying that of the total $81 million stolen funds that were deposited and withdrawn from an RCBC branch, about $63 million went to Midas and Solaire casinos.
Wong further alleged that $17m was still with remittance company Philrem, a claim the company owners however denied during the hearing.
Casino operators and government regulators said it may be difficult to account for the rest of the missing money, which was used at gambling tables. Wong said $370,000 in cash was withdrawn by the casino junket agents in violation of their agreement that all the money would remain in the casino accounts.
During the Senate hearing, Silverio Benny Tan, corporate secretary of Solaire’s operator Bloomberry Resorts Corporation, also confirmed that P1.365 billion ($29.47m) of the alleged stolen funds were transferred from Philrem’s BDO account to Solaire’s BDO account.
Tan said they had already frozen the Solaire account, but the money that was left was only P107 million ($2.34m), reports the Inquirer.
“We confirm, we have frozen the account and we are awaiting for proper court order on how they will be disposed of,” he said.
Chain of events
The stolen $81m was remitted to five accounts created with fictitious names at a branch of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, consolidated then remitted to the casinos and junket operators through Philrem.
Wong said Maia Deguito, the bank branch manager, and Gao met in May 2015 in his office to discuss opening the accounts for a big amount of money to be brought in and invested by Gao.
Wong, however, said he had no role in the fake paperwork and that was all arranged by Deguito.
On February 4, Wong said Gao told him that he and Ding would close their casino in Macau and invest the money in Manila. Gao also reportedly said he had money from the sale of his land in China.
On February 5, the money was transferred in portions to the five fictitious bank accounts. Philrem then electronically transferred the money to the casino accounts while other amounts were delivered in cash to Wong and the junket agents, or received by Wong at the house of Philrem owners Salud and Concon Bautista.
Bangladesh also turned over to the committee a list of 30 other suspicious transactions that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York did not execute. The list showed another $850m would have been transmitted to the fake accounts in the Philippine bank had those transfers not been stopped.
