Bangladesh open to out-of-court settlement over $81 mln cyber heist
03/05/2018 16:44
MANILA/DHAKA, May 3 (Reuters) - Bangladesh would consider an
out-of-court settlement with a bank in the Philippines over $81
million stolen from its accounts in New York by hackers who
wired the money to Manila, Bangladesh central bank officials
said on Thursday.
In one of the world's biggest cyber heists, the hackers
stole the Bangladesh Bank money held at the New York Fed in
February 2016 using fraudulent orders on the SWIFT payments
system and sent it to Rizal Commercial Banking Corp RCB.PS .
From there, it disappeared into the casino industry in the
Philippines. No one has been charged for the heist despite an
international investigation and two years of finger-pointing
among Bangladesh, Philippines, the Fed and SWIFT.
"There is an option before us to settle the issue out of
court," a senior official at Bangladesh's central bank told
Reuters.
The official, who declined to be identified, cited as a
precedent an out-of-court settlement in February reached by
Ecuador's Banco del Austro and Wells Fargo WFC.N over a 2015
cyber heist. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1RJ1XK
Bangladesh's Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on
Thursday met Carlos Dominguez, Finance Secretary of the
Philippines, on the sidelines of a four-day annual meeting of
the Asian Development Bank in Manila to discuss the cyber heist,
said two senior central bank officials close to the issue.
Bangladesh is yet to take legal action but had planned a
suit to recover $66 million. Around $15 million has been
recovered from a Manila junket operator, a job that involves
marketing casinos to VIPs.
"We will try for all possible options to recover our stolen
money," the officials added. There was no immediate comment from
Dominguez or Rizal bank in Manila.
(Reporting by Serajul Quadir in DHAKA and Karen Lema in MANILA
Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)
((karen.lema@thomsonreuters.com; +632 841-8938; Reuters
Messaging: karen.lema.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))