According to the Bangladesh Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), a court in this city has ordered the seizure of US$81 million from the Philippines’ Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in relation to the 2016 Bangladesh Bank (BB) reserve robbery.
“The court issued the order last Thursday (18 September) to confiscate the funds held in the RCBC, over nine years after the theft,” said Chief of CID Md Sibgat Ullah at a press conference in the city, said a press release.
He said a copy of the court order has been sent to senior officials of RCBC in the Philippines.
The Senior Special Judge’s Court in Dhaka issued the directive under Section 17(2) (7) of the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012, following an application by the CID, the agency said in a statement issued today.
According to its investigations, RCBC officials, including branch manager Maia Santos Deguito of the Jupiter Branch in Makati City and then-president and CEO Lorenzo Tan, as well as other officials from the head office and Jupiter Branch, were complicit in creating false accounts that were used to transfer the stolen funds.
According to the CID, these officials illegally disbursed the stolen monies in spite of a formal letter from Bangladesh Bank telling RCBC to halt payment.
“Courts in the Philippines have already convicted RCBC officials for their involvement, while the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (central Bank of the Philippines) imposed significant penalties on the bank. On 16 February 2016, RCBC had returned only $68,000 to Bangladesh Bank, which was its first step toward repaying the stolen funds,” it added.
The CID said its investigation, based on the evidence, determined that RCBC, as a corporate entity, committed money laundering in line with Section 27 of the Money Laundering Prevention Act.
The Dhaka court ordered that the entire $81 million confiscated from RCBC must be repatriated to the Bangladesh government’s treasury, it added.
On 5 February 2016, hackers stole $101 million from Bangladesh Bank’s accounts with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Of that, $20 million was routed to Sri Lanka – later recovered after authorities flagged the transactions. The remaining $81 million was funnelled through RCBC accounts in the Philippines and quickly dispersed to casinos and other entities, sparking an international investigation.
