Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor will meet the chief of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a senior executive from global financial messaging service SWIFT next week, seeking their assistance to recover BB’s $81 million stolen fund, officials said.
They said, BB Governor Fazle Kabir, New York Fed President William Dudley and a SWIFT representative will meet in Basel, Switzerland around on May 10.
When contacted, executive director and spokesman of the BB Shubhankar Saha told The New Nation on Wednesday that they have launched a coordinated effort to recover the stolen funds and the meeting will be held as part of the effort. “Our Governor will seek assistance from NY Fed chief and SWIFT executive to recover the BB’s heist funds. He will also request the Fed and SWIFT to probe whether there was any fault on their part in transferring the funds,” he added.
When asked, Shubhankar Saha said the BB Governor would be accompanied by officials from the central bank’s Accounts and Budgeting Department during his trip to Basel.
Kabir, who took the charge of the Bangladesh bank on March 20, earlier, in a letter to the Fed chief sought assistance to recover BB’s funds stolen by cyber thieves. He also sent similar letters to Bangladesh’s permanent representative in the United Nations, the governor of the Philippines’ central bank and the head of its anti-money laundering council for the same purpose.
BB lost US$101 million to hackers from its foreign currency reserve account maintained with the NY Fed on February 5.
The NY Fed released the funds against five payment orders. Cyber thieves made another 30 payment orders, worth around $800 million, but those attempts were thwarted by the US central bank. Upon a request from the BB, Pan Asia Banking Corporation of Sri Lanka cancelled the payment of $20 million to its ultimate beneficiary. But the $81 million that entered the Philippines’ banking system was credited to beneficiary accounts with the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation and eventually withdrawn.
BB officials believed that both the NY Fed and SWIFT had some responsibility for the February cyber heist.
The cyber criminals, who stole $81 million from the BB, hacked into software from the SWIFT financial platform and installed malware to BB’s computer servers to take control of credentials that were used to send 30 illicit payment orders from the BB account maintained with NY Fed. Later, the NY Fed released the funds against five payment orders amounting to US$ 101 million.
