Bangladesh bank chief quits over cyber heist
Print Edition
BANGLADESH’S central bank governor resigned yesterday over the theft of US$81 million from the bank’s US account, as details emerged in the Philippines that US$30 million of the money was delivered in cash to a casino junket operator in Manila.
The rest of the money hackers stole from the Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve, one of the largest cyber heists in history, went to two casinos, officials told a Philippines Senate hearing into the scandal.
They said a mix of dollars and Philippine pesos was sent by a foreign exchange broker to the ethnic Chinese junket operator over several days, a haul that would have been made up of at least 780,000 banknotes.
Unknown hackers last month breached the computer systems of Bangladesh Bank and attempted to steal US$951 million from its Fed account, which it uses for international settlements. They managed to transfer US$81 million to entities in the Philippines.
Bangladesh Bank officials have said there is little hope of apprehending the perpetrators and recovering the money would be difficult and could take months.
In Dhaka, central bank Governor Atiur Rahman said he had resigned to set an example in a country where there is little precedence of accountability and to uphold the image of the institution. The government also fired two deputy governors of the bank, Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said, days after blaming it for keeping the government in the dark about the theft.
Rahman’s exit could be a blow to Bangladesh, a South Asian nation of 160 million. Under the former development economics professor, the country’s foreign exchange reserves had increased fourfold to US$28 billion. He described the heist as an “earthquake” and said the bank had promptly informed intelligence agencies in Bangladesh and abroad.
FireEye Inc’s Mandiant forensics division is helping investigate the cyber heist. The bank has also been in touch with the Fed and other US authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice.
Bangladesh Bank is also working with anti-money laundering authorities in the Philippines, where it suspects the stolen US$81 million arrived in four tranches.
The Philippines’ Rizal Commercial Banking Corp said last week that it was investigating deposits amounting to just that sum, which were made at one of its branches.
Teofisto Guingona, head of the Philippines Senate’s anti-corruption committee, said the transfers into RCBC were subsequently consolidated into one account and some of the money was converted to pesos.
CCTV cameras at the branch were not functioning when the money was withdrawn, RCBC’s anti-money laundering head Laurinda Rogero said.
The president of a foreign exchange broker called Philrem Service Corp, Salud Bautista, told the Senate that her firm was instructed by the bank branch to transfer the funds to a man named Weikang Xu and two casinos.
She said that US$30 million went to Xu in cash. Guingona has said Xu was ethnic Chinese and a foreigner, but he was not sure if he was a Chinese national. A tranche of US$29 million ended up in an account of Solaire, a casino resort owned and operated by Bloomberry Resorts Corp. Bloomberry is controlled by Enrique Razon, the Philippines’ fifth-richest man in 2015, according to Forbes.
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