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The Bangladesh Bank yesterday said that the New York County Supreme Court has not given any judgement in a case filed against the three prime accused in connection with the 2016 reserves heist.
The three accused are Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), Lorenzo V Tan, who was president of RCBC at the time of the cyber theft, and Raul Tan, a former treasurer of the Philippines bank.
The BB filed the case with the New York court in May 2020.
Six out of 20 defendants earlier applied to the court seeking a dismissal order on the case, according to a BB statement yesterday.
Of the six, the court dismissed the case against Bloomberry Resorts and Hotels Inc and Eastern Hawaii Casino and Resort located in the Philippines on April 8, it said.
The BB went on to hope that the court would give a positive verdict against RCBC, the prime accused of the case.
The BB statement came a day after several Bangladeshi media outlets reported on the case dismissal in favour of Bloomberry and Eastern Hawaii based on the news published in the Philippines media.
An official of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, which is tasked with looking after all cases related to the heist, says the central bank will appeal against the dismissal order if its lawyers give such opinion.
He said that the central bank would continue its legal fight against the entities and individuals involved in the theft.
On February 4, 2016, hackers broke into the central bank’s system and generated 70 fake payment orders to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York amounting to $1.94 billion.
The NY Fed’s security system flagged the payment orders but only five of them fell through and $101 million was released.
Of the amount, $81 million was wired to an RCBC branch in Manila, from where it disappeared into the casino industry in the Philippines. The rest $20 million made its way to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka sent back the entire sum immediately after the heist became public and shook the global financial industry.
Bangladesh recouped less than $20 million of the fund that ended up in the Philippines.
(TDS)
