Name: Tarek Mahmud Utsho, ID: 2015-1-10-241

Business Communication, BUS 231 (section 4)

FE Report, September 2016

As rightful owner Bangladesh Bank to get $15.25 million

Philippine central bank was ordered by the court to give back $15.25m to Bangladesh Bank
from the 81 million that stolen from foreign reserves. Bangladesh Bank officials told
reporters that regional court ordered Bangko Sentral ng Pilipians (BSP), the Filipino central
bank after hearing of the cyber heist. Spokesperson for the Bangladesh Bank, F.M.
Mokammel Huq said, “We can confidently assure that we will recover complete $81 million
from Philippines before long and BSP is giving all out cooperation to us”.

Affidavit and all the other necessary documents were sent by the central bank of Bangladesh
to Philippines for getting back the amount of money that was impounded by the court order
on July 07. Under Mutual Legal Assistant (MLA) the Department of Justice of the
Philippines applied to court for completing regulations to refund $15.25 million.

Another Bangladesh Bank official told FE reporter that Bangladesh will receive the limited
fund amounting to $4,630,000 and 488,280,000 pesos after getting the court order. “It is
proven in court that the Bangladesh Bank account that was kept on Federal Reserve Bank of
New York was hacked by unknown criminals and an unauthorized command of illegal
transfer of $81,001,662.12 to Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines
was given,” the central banker mentioned as the court order said.

The chief state counsel for the Philippine Department of Justice, Ricardo Paras III told the
reporters by reading from court ruling that the court has declared Bangladesh the rightful
owner of $15 million. Unrecognized perpetrators tried to rip-off almost $1 billion from the
Bangladesh Bank account that was kept in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the
beginning of February but only succeeded in transferring $81 million to four different
accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) in the Philippines which is the largest
cyber-crime recorded.

In a Philippine senate hearing that ended in May, a casino junket operator received $35
million of which only $15 million was returned and no one know what happened to the rest.
Bangladesh had to submit an application for its claim before it can be rightfully theirs. Paras
also told that, “The court ordered the release of the cash in BSP vault to the rightful owner of
People’s Republic of Bangladesh”. This cyber fraud happened on February 4 sending a total
35 transfer orders to Federal Reserve Bank where the foreign exchange account of
Bangladesh Bank is. Almost $20 million out of $101 million that was stolen was recovered
from Sri Lanka and the biggest portion went to Philippines.

Source: The Financial Express. 20 September 2016