BB to get back some of stolen money from Manila soon: Official

Bangladesh Bank heist

A good amount of the money stolen in the heist from Bangladesh Bank (BB) will return to the country from Philippines within a short time, the BB’s executive director and spokesperson Subhankar Saha told The Independent yesterday. He, however, did not disclose the amount that will shortly be returned.

He did say that the amount might be higher or even less that the sum recovered earlier, adding that a meeting with the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of New York was held recently. 

On July 3, FRB issued a joint statement regarding the meeting, wherein it said that “the participants remain committed to working together to recover the entire proceeds of the crime, bring the perpetrators to justice in cooperation with law enforcement from other jurisdictions, and lend support to multilateral international efforts to further protect the global financial system from these types of attacks in the future”. 

The statement said representatives of the New York Fed and the BB recently met in New York to continue discussions on the episode of cyber fraud that occurred in February 2016.

Representatives of SIWFT participated remotely. As discussed at prior meetings, the parties reviewed steps that have been—and will be—taken to remediate the event, and progress towards rebuilding the SIWFT-related infrastructure in the BB to help ensure that its correspondent banking operations function in a highly secure manner.

The BB spokesperson also said: “The legal process is going on in the Philippines, and, so, we are hopeful about getting back the entire amount stolen in the heist. But it would take time.” 

Unknown cyber criminals tried to siphon off nearly USD 1bn from the BB in February 2016, which has been called one of the biggest bank frauds ever. They succeeded in transferring some USD 81m via an account at the New York Fed to four accounts in fake names at a branch of RCBC in Manila. Most of the money was laundered through casinos in Manila and remains missing. Only about USD 15m has so far been recovered and returned to Bangladesh, with a further USD 2.7m frozen.

The RCBC was fined a record one billion Philippine pesos (USD 20m) by the Philippines’ central bank, about one-fifth of its net profits last year, for its failure to prevent the BB’s money from being transferred through accounts at the bank.

The central bank recovered USD 15.25m from the Philippines’ anti-money laundering council and USD 20m from Sri Lanka.

 

 

BB to get back some of stolen money from Manila soon: Official

Bangladesh Bank heist

A good amount of the money stolen in the heist from Bangladesh Bank (BB) will return to the country from Philippines within a short time, the BBs executive director and spokesperson Subhankar Saha told The Independent yesterday. He, however, did not disclose the amount that will shortly be returned. He did say that the amount might be higher or even less that the sum recovered earlier, adding that a meeting with the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of New York was held recently. On July 3, FRB issued a joint statement regarding the meeting, wherein it said that the participants remain committed to working together to recover the entire proceeds of the crime, bring the perpetrators to justice in cooperation with law enforcement from other jurisdictions, and lend support to multilateral international efforts to further protect the global financial system from these types of attacks in the future. The statement said representatives of the New York Fed and the BB recently met in New York to continue discussions on the episode of cyber fraud that occurred in February 2016. Representatives of SIWFT participated remotely. As discussed at prior meetings, the parties reviewed steps that have beenand will betaken to remediate the event, and progress towards rebuilding the SIWFT-related infrastructure in the BB to help ensure that its correspondent banking operations function in a highly secure manner. The BB spokesperson also said: The legal process is going on in the Philippines, and, so, we are hopeful about getting back the entire amount stolen in the heist. But it would take time. Unknown cyber criminals tried to siphon off nearly USD 1bn from the BB in February 2016, which has been called one of the biggest bank frauds ever. They succeeded in transferring some USD 81m via an account at the New York Fed to four accounts in fake names at a branch of RCBC in Manila. Most of the money was laundered through casinos in Manila and remains missing. Only about USD 15m has so far been recovered and returned to Bangladesh, with a further USD 2.7m frozen. The RCBC was fined a record one billion Philippine pesos (USD 20m) by the Philippines central bank, about one-fifth of its net profits last year, for its failure to prevent the BBs money from being transferred through accounts at the bank. The central bank recovered USD 15.25m from the Philippines anti-money laundering council and USD 20m from Sri Lanka.