Officers of the Anti-Money Laundering Council filed money laundering charges before the Justice Department against six other officials of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. in connection with the $81-million laundering scam that rocked the domestic banking industry in February this year.
AMLC earlier filed a complaint against RCBC Jupiter Street Branch manager Maia Santos Deguito for allegedly violating Section 4 (f) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.
A copy of the complaint-affidavit obtained from the Justice Department showed charges were also filed on Nov. 18, 2016 against Raul Victor Tan, RCBC head of retail banking group; Ismael Reyes, national sales director, retail banking group; Brigitte Capina, regional sales director, retail banking group; Nestor Pineda, district sales director; Romualdo Agarrado, customer service head, Jupiter business center; and Angela Ruth Torres, senior customer relations officer, Jupiter business center.
The officers who filed the charges were led by Vencent Salido, AMLC deputy director; Rafael Echaluse, bank attorney IV; Monico Villar Jr., bank officer V; Alvin Bermido, bank officer IV; Jayfer Cabiles, bank officer IV; Leigh Vhon Santos, bank officer IV; Jerome Golpo, bank officer II; Rainer dela Fuente, bank officer II and Maria Ivy Lanuevo, bank officer II.
“Respondents were employees of RCBC at the time of the banking transactions discussed in this complaint-affidavit,” AMLC officials said.
The AMLC Secretariat’s investigation showed that respondent officers and employees of RCBC facilitated the suspicious transactions involving the four accounts of Michael Cruz, Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, Alfred Vergara and Enrico Vasquez on Feb. 4.
AMLC said the six RCBC officials and employees failed “to conduct the requisite investigations and inquiries into the accounts, their beneficiaries, and the transactions, attributable to their knowledge about the unlawful origins of the funds or their deliberate refusal to know the unlawful origins of the funds.”
Senate investigations earlier found out that the $81-million fund was stolen by cyber thieves from the account of Bank of Bangladesh in Federal Reserve in New York. The dirty money entered the country’s financial system through an RCBC branch on Jupiter Street in Makati City.
RCBC president and chief executive Lorenzo Tan resigned from his post at the height of Senate investigation into the case. He was succeeded by Gil Buenaventura.
Salido said in September AMLC, which is tasked to investigate money laundering activities and other violations of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, planned to file cases against other RCBC officials believed involved in the bank heist.
“… We filed cases against the branch manager, against Kim Wong, against the officers of Philrem. Now, there’s a missing link there. What about the other RCBC officials?,” Salido said at the sidelines of a Senate hearing.
“The facts wouldn’t be complete without them. Because the transactions went through them, the exchanges, the foreign exchanges went through RCBC. Without it, the resolution would be half-baked…,” he said.
Bangko Sentral earlier imposed a P1-billion penalty on RCBC for its involvement in the scam. The fine is considered the biggest penalty imposed on an erring financial institution under the Bangko Sentral supervision. RCBC already paid half of the amount a few weeks ago. The other half would be paid a year after.
Bangko Sentral said this affirmed its strong commitment to ensure the stability of the country’s financial system through strong and effective regulation of its supervised financial institutions.