All three complaints filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council arising from the $80.9 million stolen by hackers from the Bangladesh Bank and laundered to the country will be consolidated, a Justice official said on Wednesday.
Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, head of the Department of Justice’s National Prosecution Service, stressed that the latest charges of money laundering against PhilRem Service Corp. would be consolidated with the first two similar charges filed by AMLC against former RCBC branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito and businessmen Kam Sin Wong alias Kim Wong and Weikang Xu.
“Yes, the latest AMLC complaint will also undergo preliminary investigation and will be consolidated to the first two related cases [against Deguito and Wong],” Arellano said in a text message to reporters.
The Justice official said the complaint against PhilRem president Salud Bautista, chairman of the board and treasurer Michael “Concon” Bautista and anti-money laundering compliance officer Anthony Pelejo filed last month would be referred to Asst. State Prosecutor Gilmarie Fe Pacamarra for hearing and resolution.
Arellano said a separate subpoena would be issued in the next few days requiring the PhilRem officers to appear before the prosecutor and answer the charges of money laundering under Section 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.
In its 17-page complaint filed last April 27, the AMLC alleged that PhilRem officers were part of the conspiracy to launder the stolen money after investigation showed that $61 million was eventually converted and transferred to PhilRem’s peso account at the RCBC-Unimart Greenhills branch.
Pacamarra is already hearing the earlier complaints against Deguito and Wong filed last March and has set the next hearing on June 7.
Deguito denied the charges and filed with the prosecutor her counter-affidavit last May 3. She asked the DoJ to dismiss the charges for lack of probable cause.
She denied the allegation that she facilitated the laundering of the stolen money, insisting that it was former RCBC president Lorenzo Tan who ordered her to open the four fictitious accounts where the $80,884,641.63 stolen by hackers from the Bangladesh Bank went.
The former manager of the bank’s branch in Jupiter Street in Makati City stressed all the transactions in her branch had the approval of Tan, claiming that she is only being used as scapegoat by the bank officials to avoid criminal liabilities.
Wong, for his part, has yet to answer the AMLC complaint, which alleged that $21.6 million of the laundered money went to him. The businessman has already returned the money to the government.
Xu, on the other hand, has not appeared in the DoJ hearing, nor did he send a lawyer. A total of $59.2 million from the laundered money allegedly went to him.