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$81M seized from Philippine bank over BB heist
Authorities have seized $81 million from Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in the Philippines in connection with the Bangladesh Bank reserve theft case.
With this recovery, CID officials said, Bangladesh has achieved a major success in the long-running legal battle to recover the stolen reserve money.
The Bangladesh Bank reserve heist, one of the largest cyber robberies in history, occurred in the early hours of February 5, 2016.
Hackers attempted to transfer about US $1 billion from the Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Fed, of which US $101 million was successfully moved.
The majority of the funds were laundered using the Philippines’ casino industry’s secrecy law and limited oversight. Of the stolen foreign currency, US $81 million went to the Philippines and about US $20 million to Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankan funds were recovered in time, but retrieving the amount sent to the Philippines proved more complicated. So far, the Bangladesh government has recovered about USD 18 million from the Philippines.
Bangladesh’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID), US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation and the Central Bank of Sri Lanka jointly conducted the investigation, reports UNB.