Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. said Tuesday it is not liable to pay any amount to Bank of Bangladesh for the theft of the $81-million fund deposited with the Federal Reserve in New York.
“Numerous reports quoting high Bangladeshi officials and the initial findings of BB’s own investigation indicated that the heist got help from BB insiders. Shortly after, BB decided to abort its investigation which raises a lot of questions, to say the least,” RCBC external counsel Thea Daep said in a statement.
“RCBC is not the proximate cause of the theft. They have no case against us. BB was the one who was negligent. We therefore urge BB to be transparent to the Philippine government which has done so much to help them and show us who really stole from them,” Daep said.
“Consequently, RCBC has no plans to pay BB any amount,” she said.
The stolen funds entered the country’s financial system in February through an RCBC branch on Jupiter Street in Makati City. Investigations found out that the funds went through three layers of highly protected financial institutions: the New York Federal Reserve, Swift System and the three global banks that eventually made the remittance.
Daep said Bangladesh Ambassador John Gomes was unfairly using the media to pressure the Philippine government and make it its own collection agent, and in the process, was creating an undue and unnecessary adverse public portrayal of RCBC and by extension, the local banking sector.
Gomes blamed everybody but itself for its loss, Daep said.
Daep challenged Bank of Bangladesh to produce the results of its own investigation, even the initial ones, to help shed light on who the perpetrators were. She said this would be critical in helping the global banking sector protect itself. “This is the least BB can do,” Daep said.
Part of the $81 million was recovered by Bank of Bangladesh early this month. Officials in Manila handed over $15 million to the bank, and Gomes received the fund on its behalf.
A court in September ruled that Bangladesh Bank was the rightful owner of around $15 million surrendered by casino boss Kim Wong and his Eastern Hawaii Leisure Company.
Last week, the Anti-Money Laundering Council filed before the Justice Department money laundering charges against six other officials of RCBC in connection with the $81-million money laundering scam.
Accused were 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.
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.”
Bangko Sentral earlier imposed a P1-billion penalty on RCBC for its involvement in the scam. The fine is considered the biggest ever imposed on a financial institution under Bangko Sentral’s supervision. RCBC already paid half of the amount. The other half would be paid a year later.