Special Correspondent :
The US Federal Reserve Bank will be assisting Bangladesh Bank to recover the latter’s $81 million fund stolen from its account in 2016.
In a joint statement on Friday, the central banks of the USA and Bangladesh said they will be working together to “bring the wrongdoers responsible to justice.”
“This agreement demonstrates that the New York Fed and Bangladesh Bank are aligned in the pursuit of recovering the funds and directing litigation against those who were complicit in or benefitted from the fraud,” read the statement.
The statement came after Bangladesh Bank (BB) sued Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in a US court, for its involvement in the cyber heist.
Both the central banks said they will be meeting jointly with the agencies or parties in the Philippines “to strongly encourage them to assist in the recovery of stolen funds.”
“To further the recovery effort, the New York Fed and Bangladesh Bank have entered into a Resolution and Assistance Agreement where the New York Fed will provide technical assistance to Bangladesh Bank in its litigation against those who were complicit in the fraud to recover the stolen funds,” the central banks said.
The New York Fed and Bangladesh Bank pointed out that the multimillion dollar cyberheist “represents a threat to the international funds transfer system.”
On February 4, 2016, the hackers broken into Bangladesh Bank’s system and created 70 orders to the New York Federal Reserve Bank amounting to $1.94 billion. Of that amount, $101 million was released.
The hackers sent $81 million to the RCBC’s branch in Manila and swiftly withdrawn and vanished through local casinos, and the rest, $20 million went to Sri Lanka, which has returned the money to Bangladesh.
The Philippines later returned $14.54 million to Bangladesh but the rest is yet to be retrieved.
A Philippine court found RCBC former manager Maia Deguito guilty of money laundering over the heist, sentencing her to 4 to 7 years in prison for each of the 8 counts.
