Staff Reporter :There is a “very low” chance that the government will be able to retrieve the $81 million stolen from the Bangladesh central bank because the money is now likely outside the country, says Senator Sergio Osmeña III.Quoting Senator Osmeña, Philippines Daily Inquirer on Wednesday said still, tracking the money from Bangladesh Bank would depend on the cooperation of casinos at the resumption on Thursday of Senate inquiry into the money-laundering scheme. The stolen money found its way into casinos after being withdrawn from a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in Makati City.Senator Teofisto Guingona III, Chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, said it would be very difficult to retrieve the money “given that it has entered the blackhole.”At the resumption of its hearing on Thursday, the Senate blue ribbon committee is expected to focus on casinos in finding out what happened to the stolen money.Osmeña told reporters in his office in Makati City that the chance of retrieving the money is “very low”. “We will try to get more information from the casinos. We have not questioned the President of Solaire because he was out of the country and the corporate counsel he sent does not know the details of the transactions,” he said.The Senator said he wanted to find out from the casinos “where the money went” and for them to show their records that they “received the amounts and to whom these amounts were credited.”The Senate committee is looking for the “electronic trail” of the money from the casinos, according to Osmeña.”I hope (the casinos can provide the electronic trail). We don’t know how they will defend themselves but the law is full of holes. They can get away with it,” he said.Asked whether there were laws that the casinos could invoke to allow them not to talk, Osmeña said the country’s laws “protect more the criminals than the government,” citing as example the bank secrecy law that was invoked repeatedly by RCBC officials at the hearing on Tuesday.Meanwhile, a witness told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that a 20-million peso (US$4.31 lakh) cash believed to be part of the $81-million stolen funds from the Bangladesh Bank was allegedly loaded to the vehicle of Maia Santos-Deguito, the branch manager of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC). Romualdo Agarrado, former customer service head of RCBC branch on Jupiter Street in Makati City, disclosed this when he testified at the resumption of the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the alleged money laundering scheme that slipped through the Philippine financial system. Agarrado said he personally saw the $4.31 lakh cash placed in a paper bag being loaded to the car of Deguito last February 5 when the inward remittance in the name of businessman William Go came in.In the afternoon of February 5, Agarrado said, the branch’s assistant manager, Angela Torres, requested $4.31 lakh from the cash centre.”Then around 5:30 in the afternoon, the armor car arrived from the cash center… bibilangin po namin yung cash (we would count the cash), that was $4.31 lakh requested from the cash center,” he said.Agarrado said he and Torres immediately transferred the money to the teller.”Between 6:30 [and] 6:45pm the teller placed the money in a box, counted it and put the cash in branch manager Maia Deguito’s room. That time BM Maia was outside the branch, I think she was talking to somebody on the cellphone,” he said.He said Jovy Morales, the bank messenger, then transferred the money from the box to a paper bag before loading it to Deguito’s vehicle with the help of Torres. “Jovy Morales loaded [the money] to the vehicle of manager Maia Deguito. Morales was the one who loaded it and was assisted by Angela Torres,” he added.Agarrado said, “I could clearly see it because I was sitting on the table fronting the main door of the branch. It was made of glass so it could be clearly seen outside, even though it was 6:30 or quarter to 7:00pm already, the lighting was clear inside the branch.”
