Staff Reporter :While authorities piece together clues on the $81 million dirty money that slipped through the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) Jupiter branch in Makati from an account of Bangladesh central bank, the legal counsels for the bank’s chief executive officer (CEO) and the branch manager traded barbs on the integrity of the bank’s internal investigation, according to a report published by Daily Inquirer.net. on Sunday. Ferdinand Topacio, legal counsel for Maia Santos-Deguito, the RCBC Jupiter branch manager who was the gatekeeper of the suspicious bank accounts involved in the cross-border money laundering scheme, questioned RCBC’s ability to come up with a fair investigation if RCBC president Lorenzo Tan remained active on day-to-day operations. Francis Lim, the legal counsel for RCBC president, said on Sunday that the bank was handling this issue “professionally and employing best practices.” Lim also underscored an apparent change in stance by Deguito, who said in a radio interview on Friday that she was “not accusing” Tan but had only “assumed” that he knew about the transactions – contradicting earlier allegations that the bank CEO himself had given instructions to accommodate the transactions. “Our client, Ms. Maia Santos-Deguito views with alarm and suspicion the failure of RCBC to impose appropriate measures against RCBC president Lorenzo Tan pending the investigation of the alleged $81 million money laundering incident,” Topacio said in a press statement.Topacio said if RCBC were serious in uncovering the truth regarding the alleged money laundering – and not preparing for a widespread cover-up and setting up Deguito as the “fall guy” – the bank should immediately suspend Tan and reassign the investigation to another bank officer with no links to Tan’s lawyers.”On Friday, Lim said the RCBC president had offered to go on leave to give the bank a “free hand” in investigating the alleged money laundering issue involving its Jupiter branch in Makati and its branch manager. “The bank’s board thanked him for his gentlemanly and decent gesture but said their trust in him is intact and unshaken,” Lim said. “In light of the recent pronouncements of Mr. William Go in media and the apparently orchestrated media blitzmanagement which is conditioning the mind of the public against Ms. Santos-Deguito, it is most unfair for Mr. Tan to continue serving as bank president, where he is in a position to delete and/or tamper with bank records, emails and other documents and forms of communication, as well as influence and intimidate possible witnesses, considering that he is under a cloud of suspicion. It is also strange that RCBC has vouched for Mr. Tan’s supposed ‘integrity’ even while the internal investigation is still pending,” Topacio said.Go is the businessman who accused Deguito of faking his signatures to open the US dollar deposit account with RCBC that was used to consolidate proceeds from four other bank accounts to which the $81 million money stolen by hackers from the US account of Bank of Bangladesh was wired by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He was among the six individuals that the Anti-Money Laundering Council has identified as among the potential conspirators to the $81-million money laundering scheme. His accounts as well as those of his company Centurytex Trading were ordered frozen by the Court of Appeals on March 1. Through a lawyer, he has vehemently denied involvement and instead pointed to Deguito as the culprit. “We also view with great suspicion the fact that Mr. Tan is represented in the investigation by the ACCRA (Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz Law Offices Law Office) when the one conducting the investigation on behalf of RCBC, Atty. Macel Fernandez, used to be connected with ACCRA,” Topacio said.Topacio was referring to Lim and former ACCRA lawyer Maria Cecilia Fernandez-Estavillo, now head of legal and regulatory affairs at RCBC. “His allegations regarding Accra and Atty. Macel Fernandez are way off,” Lim said in a rejoinder.Lim said the board committee investigating the matter was composed of members representing the major stockholders, adding that Fernandez was not part of it. The committee is being assisted by SGV auditors and external lawyers from another law firm, the Poblador Bautista Reyes – not ACCRA, Lim said. “So instead of asking RCBC to sanction Mr. Tan, Atty Topacio should instead assist his client to explain the accusation of Mr. William Go that she opened an account in her branch without his knowledge, used this account for deposit and withdrawal without his knowledge, and identify who forged Mr. Go’s signature to withdraw money,” Lim said. “He should also busy himself explaining why she attempted to fly to Japan last Friday which has been perceived as flight and therefore an implied admission of guilt,” Lim said.
