FINANCE Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the government has “nothing to do” with the reported plan of Bank of Bangladesh for an out-of-court settlement with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. over the $81-million amount stolen by cyber thieves from its accounts in New York and wired to the local bank in February 2016.
Reuters reported that Bangladesh’s Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Thursday discussed with Dominguez the cyber heist, which is considered one of the biggest that occurred recently.
“Yesterday, the finance minister and the ambassador of Bangladesh mentioned that and my opinion is that, that is between them and the private sector. It’s nothing to do with us,” Dominguez said Friday at the sidelines of the 51st annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank in Mandaluyong City.
“The government has taken action, we have penalized the bank (RCBC) that have not followed our procedure, we have filed legal cases, the AMLC (Anti-Money Laundering Council) has filed cases against the suspects and if they want to make a legal settlement, then we are not involved in that. We are only implementing our laws here,” Dominguez said.
He said he told Bangladeshi officials that the AMLC needed evidence that the crime was committed here.
“The crime was not committed here. The crime of hacking was not committed here. It was committed somewhere else, maybe Bangladesh, maybe in New York. So the local courts need the evidence… ,” Dominguez said.
He said local courts had been asking Bangladesh for the evidence since the latter part of 2016.
“So according to the AMLC, they have not been able to really pursue the case vigorously because that’s what the courts here require… ,” he said.
Dominguez said the Bangladeshi ambassador “promised” to him that he would provide the evidence.
“They just said they’re working on it. We’re waiting,” Dominguez said.
Reuters said in a report that a Bangladeshi official cited as a precedent an out-of-court settlement in February reached by Ecuador’s Banco del Austro and Wells Fargo over a 2015 cyber heist.
In February 2016, cyber thieves stole $81 million from the account of Bank of Bangladesh in New York and wired the dirty money to some fictitious accounts in the Jupiter, Makati branch of RCBC. The money was later laundered by a number of individuals in local casinos.
