Staff Reporter :
Hopes have dimmed for recovering the remaining portions of Bangladesh Bank’s heist fund from Philippines as the authorities of the country are showing a ‘cold shoulder responsibility’ to Bangladesh authorities over the issue.
The new Philippines government earlier assured of all-out support to Bangladesh authorities to retrieve the $81 million heist fund. But it later changed the mindset fading the hope for retrieving the fund.
In February 5 last year, unknown hackers stole $81 million via an account of Bangladesh Bank (BB) at the New York Federal Reserve and the fund was transmitted online to four accounts in fake names at a Manila branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC).
The fund was withdrawn up to February 9 when the central bank already alerted RCBC and asked for a stop payment on February 8.
Most of the money was vanished through Philippine casinos.
In November 11, 2016, Bangladesh received $15.25 million, a portion of the stolen money, from the Philippines’ anti-money laundering council, nine months after the hacking.
The fund was recovered from a gaming junket operator and returned to Bangladesh.
Till then the Bangladesh authorities are pursuing the Philippines authorities to get back rest of the fund. But their efforts are yet to yield any positive result, sources said.
“It would take more time….. We are trying our best for retrieving the remaining amount of $65.75 million. We are hopeful to get back the money from Philippines,” BB deputy governor Abu Hena Mohammad Razi Hasan, told The New Nation on Sunday.
But the former central bankers expressed pessimism over getting back the remaining portions of the heist fund from the Philippines saying the task now turns more difficult as a result of mishandling the issue by Bangladesh authorities.
“The issue has entered into a complex phase due to lack of coordination among the government agencies. Even, the government from its part has failed to handle the issue properly,” former BB governor Dr Salehuddin Ahmed told The New Nation yesterday.
He pointed out that the Philippines Bank which comes at the center point of the BB heist case denied their liability of laundering the money and blamed BB for the theft. It seems that the Philippines government is not so active, as it should have been in recovering the stolen fund.
“All these matters have created a potential uncertainty over the fund recovery,” said Dr Salehuddin Ahmed.
“The state to state negotiation has been failed as the president of Philippines did not cooperate with Bangladesh. Now Bangladesh has to take legal support to recover the fund. It will take four to five months to settle the issue,” former BB deputy governor Dr Ibrahim Khaled told The New Nation yesterday.
A high-level Bangladesh delegation went to Manila to speed up recovery of BB heist fund in November last year. The delegation was scheduled to meet with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. But the meeting was not held as the President had reportedly been skipped the meeting.
Commenting on the issue, Dr Ibrahim Khaled said, “The President Rodrigo Duterte skipped the meeting because the Philippines government is not interested to settle the issue bilaterally. Now, Bangladesh has no other alternative but to go for legal battle for retrieving the remaining heist fund.”
