Bangladeshi investigators have submitted a digital forensic report to the Philippines court over the $81 million cyber heist.
Bangladesh Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is in charge of probing the biggest heist in the modern banking industry.
“The forensic report, submitted to the court in the Philippines, stipulates that the money was stolen from Bangladesh ban’s reserve through hacking,” Special Superintended Mollah Nazrul Islam of the CID’s Organised and Financial Crime unit told Bangla Tribune.
Unidentified hackers stole $81 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Fed in February 2016, using fraudulent orders on the SWIFT payments system. The money was sent to accounts at Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp and then disappeared into the casino industry in the Philippines.
Another $20 million was wired to Sri Lanka, though that transfer was stopped successfully.
People in Bangladesh could learn about the largest cyber heist in the world through reports published in a Filipino newspaper a month after the incident.
The heist cost Governor Atiur Rahman his job after he drew flak for keeping the theft under wraps. It was followed by a major overhaul of the top brass of Bangladesh’s central bank.
More than two years later, there is no word on who was responsible and Bangladesh Bank has been able to retrieve only about $15 million, mostly from a Manila junket operator.