Reporter Daxim L. Lucas of the Philippines based daily The Inquirer, who first made public the news of hacking of Bangladesh Bank reserve held with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, says Bangladesh and his country were mere pawns in the incident, with many more players and bosses involved behind the scene. The plot was hatched a long time ago and the main objective of the group was to get away with the full 1 billion dollars, which was prevented by the authorities, The Inquirer reporter said.
In an exclusive interview with The Independent yesterday at his office in Manila, The Inquirer business reporter Lucas gave details on how he developed the story and his overall view over the sensational theft. Lucas said he learned about the incident from his sources with the government about two weeks after the incident. It took him one more week to gather all the details to break the story. “The incident was on February 5, and about three weeks later my story came out on February 29. That’s when the world learned about the incident,” He said his links with the government helped him to obtain necessary documents. “If you know people in certain agencies, it is easy to ask them for papers and documents,” he said.
Lucas said the plan to steal money from the Bangladesh Bank reserves was hatched a long time ago, possibly a year ago. “And then they waited, and they got all the pieces in place,” he added. “The biggest reaction I think came a week later, with the third story, when we learned that it was not just 81 million, but almost a billion dollars, and it (the news) was then picked up by the international media,” he said. Lucas suspected that there could be parties in Bangladesh who are involved in the scheme. “Bangladesh and the Philippines are just small players in the chess board. They are just pawns. It does look that way to me,” he said. “…there are many players and your country and my country are just pawns. The bosses are somewhere else… But I’m confident that a clearer picture will emerge soon,” Lucas said. When asked to comment on the flow of the stolen money, Lucas said that the hackers have devised a clever scheme. “I’ve heard that one casino junket operator did not know where the money came from. According to Mr Wong, the money came from these two Chinese players. The money was supposed to come as payment for debt owed to him,” he said. About the identity of the two Chinese gamblers, Lucas said that Mr Gao is a regular visitor to the Philippines while Mr Ding is a new visitor. The goal was to get the total 1 billion dollars or 950 million… but luckily the bulk of it was stopped, said Lucas.