BB heist: Opposition demands finance minister’s statement

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Bangla Tribune Report
Published : 22:50, Feb 04, 2019 | Updated : 22:58, Feb 04, 2019

The Bangladesh central bank headquarters in Dhaka. Cyber criminals broke into its computer systems and sent fake payment orders for nearly $1 billion. REUTERS/File PhotoAn opposition lawmaker has called Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal to give a statement in the House over an update of the 2016 cyber-heist of the Bangladesh Bank’s reserve.
Speaking on a point of order during Monday’s session, Jatiya Party’s Mujibul Haque Chunnu came down hard on the government for no progress in recovering the money stolen from the central bank’s account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
“According to media reports, the Bangladesh Bank has filed a lawsuit in the US court three years after the heist, which Philippine’s Rizal (Commercial Bank Corp RCBC) claimed as baseless and a political stunt,” said the opposition MP.
The government had conducted an investigation over the heist, he said before adding, “I want the finance minister to give a statement in parliament under section 300 on the government’s measures to bring back the heist money.”
Bangladesh Bank lost $81 million to the heist in February 2016. The funds were transferred to the Philippines and beyond using Philrem and a branch of the Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp or RCBC.
RCBC was fined a record 1 billion pesos ($19.17 million) by the Filipino central bank in August 2016 for its failure to prevent the movement of the stolen money through the bank.
A former treasurer of RCBC and five other workers at the branch where the cash was withdrawn are facing money laundering charges.
On Jan 11 this year, a Philippines court held a former manager of an RCBC branch guilty on eight counts of money laundering, the first conviction in the cyberheist.
Only $15 million of the stolen money has been retrieved from a Manila junket operator, a role that involves marketing casinos to VIPs.
The Bangladesh Bank filed a lawsuit in a US court on Jan 31 in a bid to recover the rest of the funds and bring the perpetrators to justice.
The case accuses the RCBC and dozens of others, including several top executives, of involvement in a “massive” and “intricately planned” multi-year conspiracy to steal its money.
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