The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Central bank retrieved $15.25 million (P732 million at P48/$1) of the $81 million (P3.89 billion) stolen in a cyber attack in the United States last February.
Bangladesh officials who are now working to retrieve more of the funds believe that at least $30 million (P1.4 billion) more could eventually be recovered.
In what was believed to be the largest cyber heist in history, hackers targeted the bank’s access to the Swift messaging system to transfer $1 billion from its account at the New York Federal Reserve. Ultimately, $81 million was stolen after a spelling error alerted authorities to the hack.
The hackers, whose identities remain unknown, transferred the stolen money to four accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC). To move the stolen cash, it is believed it was laundered through casinos in the region.
A Bangladesh central bank team arrived Monday last week to work on the recovery of the stolen funds.
A regional trial court of Manila ruled in September that Bangladesh Bank, the country’s central bank, was the rightful owner of around $15 million surrendered by casino junket operator Kim Wong and the Eastern Hawaii Leisure Company, which he owns.
Wong returned $4.63 million (P222 million) and P488.28 million in local currency to the authorities from the money he allegedly took from two Chinese high-rollers. He has denied any role in the daring online theft.
Bangladesh Ambassador to the Philippines John Gomes said the writ of execution needed for the money to be handed back to Bangladesh has already been done by the court.
Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Abu Hena Mohammad Razee Hassan, who is also financial intelligence unit head of the bank, said Bangladesh could retrieve the rest of the cash.
“We are hoping to get back around $30 million more that remains frozen,” he said.
Earlier, the Bangladesh police said it had identified 20 “foreign suspects,” 12 Filipinos and eight Sri Lankans, who were believed to have played a role in the cyber theft.
For its part, Swift, the secure system that connects more than 10,000 financial institutions globally, claims it was not compromised in the attack.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the BSP and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its attached agency, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), have agreed to take steps leading to a closer working relationship in support of President Duterte’s all-out drive to run after suspected money launderers.
Dominguez said “these four institutions’ adoption of a much closer working arrangement with respect to investigations on suspected crooks who make use of our tough bank-secrecy law to stash their loot in our banking system is expected to preclude from hereon any miscommunication similar to the one that has apparently and unfortunately taken place in the Bangladesh Bank theft.
“[BSP Governor Amando] Tetangco, a respected member of the economic team, has been providing valuable help in the pursuit of criminals engaged in money laundering,” Dominguez said.
The timely submission of documents needed by the NBI for its investigation after the initial “wrinkle” in their working arrangement illustrates that the concerned institutions have been up to the task but regrettably have had to observe the normally tedious procedures as required by law, he added.
Dominguez said “the BSP has not been remiss in doing its job supportive of the Duterte administration’s anti-graft crusade, but the tedious legal process that has from the start been a stumbling block to the immediate prosecution of suspected money launderers underline the urgency for the Congress to pass new legislation relaxing the country’s bank-secrecy law, which has among the world’s most restrictive regulations.”
He said, “this is one reason the future success of the comprehensive tax-reform program that the Department of Finance has proposed to Congress as a way of partly raising enough funds for the government’s anti-poverty agenda is contingent on our legislators’ passage of a complementary law relaxing the country’s bank-secrecy law.”