A regional trial court of Philippine on Monday ordered the country’s central bank to return to the Bangladesh central bank a recovered portion of the $81 million fund stolen by hackers from its account held with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The National Capital Judicial Region came up with the order after hearing a forfeiture case between the government of Philippines and casino junket operator Kim Wong.
Philippine’s Department of Justice (DoJ) represented the case on behalf of Bangladesh.
The court earlier issued forfeiture order of the funds amounting to $15.25 million turned over by casino junket operator Kim Wong to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AML) of Philippines in April and May.
“We have received a copy of the court ruling which ordered the Philippines central bank to release of the $15.25 million in favour of Bangladesh. The court declared Bangladesh as the rightful owner of the recovered funds,” AFM Mokammel Hoque, a spokesman of Bangladesh Bank (BB) told reporters in a press conference on Monday evening.
He said: The fund is now kept in the vault of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the central bank of Philippines. The amount would be deposited to BB account soon.
“We are trying to recover rest of portions of the stolen funds through legal process. The government of Philippine and its central bank have already extended all-out supports and cooperation to the Bangladesh Embassy in Manila in this endeavor,” he added.
The BB spokesman expressed the hope that they will be able to recover all the stolen funds that laundered through Philippines banking system. When asked, he said, the BB and the Philippines central bank would discuss how and when the fund to be released to Bangladesh exchequer following the court’s order. According to BB, unidentified hackers tried to steal nearly $1 billion from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in early February, and succeeded in transferring $81 million to four accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in Manila. During a Philippine Senate hearing into the heist which ended in May, a casino junket operator Kim Wong claimed to have received $35 million of the stolen funds but only returned $15.25 million.
But the Philippines authorities are yet to be tracked to the rest of the funds.
