The Department of Justice has exonerated the executives of remittance firm Philrem Service Corp. of culpability in the money laundering case involving $81 million in stolen funds by hackers from the Bangladesh Bank.
In a six-page resolution, the DOJ Anti-Money Laundering Task Force granted the motion for reconsideration filed by Philrem executives Salud Bautista, Michael Bautista and Anthony Pelejo last May and dismissed the charges filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council against them.
This means that former Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito would be the only remaining principal accused in the money laundering case that the DoJ filed before the Makati City Regional Trial Court.
The DoJ investigating fiscals cleared the three Philrem executives after finding out that they reported the suspicious transfer of funds through the bank.
“The Anti-Money Laundering Task Force took cognizance of the respondents' averment that contrary to the charge filed against them, they have properly submitted a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) on 17 February 2016. The respondents presented the subject STR and since the resolution centered on said document, the charge against them for money laundering is herein dismissed,” the resolution signed by Senior Deputy State Prosecutor Emilie Fe Delos Santos ruled.
However, the DoJ has yet to resolve the separate money laundering charges filed by AMLC against six RCBC officials—former retail banking group head Raul Victor Tan, Ismael Reyes, Brigitte Capiña, Nestor Pineda, Romualdo Agarrado and Angela Ruth Torres.
If the investigating prosecutors eventually find probable cause against the other RCBC officials, they will join Deguito as co-accused in the money laundering case.
The DoJ task force denied Deguito’s motion for reconsideration, which sought the dismissal of the charges against her.
The investigating task force said that Deguito is criminally liable “based on the fact that she facilitated the withdrawal of the said funds from RCBC and depositing them to the accounts of the unknown and fictitious account holders.”
“The motion for reconsideration is denied as the arguments have already been passed upon in the consolidated review resolution,” resolution stated.
With this findings, the DoJ recently filed a case for eight counts of money laundering under Republic Act 9160 or Anti-Money Laundering Act, before the Makati City RTC against Deguito and four unidentified persons who created fictitious bank accounts in RCBC where the stolen amounts were deposited.
The DoJ also upheld its dismissal of the money laundering charges against casino junket operators Kim Wong and Weikang Xu “for insufficiency of evidence.”
It reiterated that the allegations of the AMLC against them “were not supported by direct evidence, but mainly by conjectures and implications.”
In an earlier resolution, the DoJ found probable cause to indict the Bautista spouses and Pelejo for violations of Section 4 a (transacts monetary instruments or property that represents, involves, or related to the proceeds of an unlawful activity), 4 b (converts, transfers, disposes of, moves, acquires, possesses or uses said monetary instrument or property), 4 f (performs or fails to perform any act as a result of which he facilitates a money laundering offense); Section 9 b (record keeping); and Section 14 c (malicious reporting) of RA No. 9160.
The DoJ had also found that the respondents conspired to launder the stolen money into the bank.
