TWO Chinese nationals brought the $81 million stolen from Bangladesh Bank into the country in cahoots with dismissed RCBC Jupiter branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito and remittance firm Philrem Service Corp., a casino junket operator Kam Sin Wong a.k.a. Kim Wong said Tuesday.
Testifying in the third Senate hearing on money laundering in banks and casinos, Wong named the Chinese nationals as Shuhua Gao, a junket agent from Beijing, China, and Zhize Ding, a businessman from Macau. He said the two were the “big players” in the cyber bank heist and the subsequent laundering of the money through RCBC and the casinos.
Wong had earlier said he would put the names of the supposed masterminds in a sealed envelope that would be submitted to the authorities, but upon prodding from Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, he was compelled to divulge their identities at the hearing.
Wong also tagged Deguito as the one who opened the five bank accounts using fictitious names to accept the $81 million. He said it was also Deguito who facilitated the release of the stolen funds from her branch, where it later ended up in casinos at Solaire and Midas, with the help of PhilRem.
Deguito had earlier testified before the Senate panel that four of the said accounts were referred to her by Wong. She admitted facilitating the dollar accounts under the names of Michael Cruz, Jessie Lagrosas, Alfred Vergara and Enrico Vasquez.
The total amount of $81 million was deposited in these accounts on Feb. 5, 2016 after an initial deposit of $500 in each account.
The stolen money, remitted in five tranches, was later on consolidated in an account under the name of businessman Wiliam So Go.
In the first Senate hearing, Go testified he never opened such an account at the Jupiter branch and has never even set foot in that bank.
Go also told senators that Deguito met with him in a restaurant in Global City, Taguig, and admitted she had opened a dollar account under his name, and then offered him P10 million for his silence.
He reiterated Tuesday that his signatures on the bank opening forms and withdrawal slips were forgeries.
All the funds that were credited into Go’s account were later transferred to the account of PhilRem, maintained at RCBC-Unimart Greenhills.
Senator Vicente Sotto III demanded that PhilRem produce records of the transaction and show how much it earned from it.
“It seemed thaf PhilRem has a starring role here,” Sotto said, dismissing the statement of PhilRem president Salud Bautista that they were not a major player in the irregular transaction.
“All these funds passed through you,” Sotto told the PhilRem president.
Under questioning by Senator Teofisto Guingona III, Wong denied referring the four account holders to Deguito, insisting that he only introduced Gao to Deguito as he owed him P450 million from casino losses at Solaire.
He said Deguito, along with three companions, went to his office at Midas Hotel in Pasay City sometime in May 2015. But it was only Deguito who entered his office. He was then with Gao.
When Gao said he was interested in opening a dollar account to facilitate the transfer of money for his casino operations, Wong recalled Deguito answered “I’ll take charge of this.”
He remembered Deguito also told Gao she needs his cooperation.
“Maia also said she needed five persons to make a corporation,” Wong said.
He said Gao even complained about the difficulty of opening an account, but Deguito assured him that she would take care of everything.
After two or three days, Wong said Deguito called Gao asking for $2,500 to open the five dollar accounts.
On Feb. 5, Wong said Deguito called him several times the whole day to inform him about the entry of $81 million—in five tranches consisting of $6 million, $25 million, $30 million and $20 million—in the four accounts.
Wong then requested that a part of the money be sent to Gao at the Solaire Casino, to which Deguito complied by delivering P100 million in cash.
He presented to the committee a CCTV photo of Deguito’s vehicle entering Solaire that night to deliver P100 million converted from the dollar account by PhilRem and his own photo of the cash being delivered to the casino. He then got a total of $5 million and P300 million from the house of PhilRem executive Michael Bautista. With Gabrielle Binaday and Julito G. Rada
Wong said that he got P100 million cash and $3 million from Bautista at the latter’s house on Feb. 9, another P100 million and $2 million on Feb. 10 and P100 million more on Feb. 14.
Of the total $81 million stolen funds that were deposited and withdrawn from the RCBC branch of Deguito, Wong said about $63 million went to Midas and Solaire casinos. He said the balance of about $17 million, was with Philrem.
The casino junked operator, also president and general manager of Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co. LTd., also cleared RCBC president on-leave Lorenzo Tan of any involvement in the scam as alleged by Deguito.
When asked by Enrile to comment on Deguito’s previous testimony that in one private party, Tan told her to take good care of Wong, Wong said this was not true.
Tan’s counsel Francis Lim said that Wong’s expose against Deguito and PhilRem and his statement clearing Tan of any involvement in the money laundering scheme proves that Deguito had unduly dragged Tan into the controversy in a “shrewd design” to muddle the issues in the ongoing Senate investigation and “obscure her role as a principal player” in the heist.
Also at Tuesday’s hearing, Solaire’s counsel Benny Tan told the senators they have frozen the account of a certain “Mr. Ding” who was implicated by Wong in the $81 million bank heist. The amount involved was about P107.35 million in chips.
He testified that Solaire also confiscated various denominations of cash from their rooms, amounting to P1.35 million.
“We are committed to hold these and comply with whatever court order would apply,” he said.
Wong said about $4.63 million is still in Solaire for safekeeping and he is willing to surrender the money to authorities.
The Justice Department said it would summon Wong and Weikang Xu as part of its investigation into the money laundering scandal.
Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, chief of the DOJ’s prosecutorial arm, said the complaint filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) last week against Wong and Xu would undergo preliminary investigation.
Arellano said the case has been consolidated with a similar complaint earlier filed by the AMLC against Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. branch manager Deguito and four others.
Earlier, the Justice Department summoned Deguito to a preliminary investigation set for April 12 and 19.
Arellano said a separate subpoena would be issued in the next few days requiring Wong and Xu to appear before the prosecutor and answer the charges of money laundering under Section 4 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act.
In its complaint, the AMLC alleged that about $21.6 million of the laundered amount went to Wong while some $59.2 million to Xu.
The AMLC earlier filed a similar case against Deguito and four other respondents – Michael Francisco Cruz, Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, Alfred Santos Vergara, and Enrico Teodoro Vasquez, the supposed owners of the bank accounts where the $80,884,641.63 stolen by hackers from the Bangladesh Bank went.
The council included the four individuals in the complaint despite an initial finding that these names might be fictitious.
Filipino-Chinese businessman William Go, to whom the amount was reportedly transferred before the money was laundered in local casinos, was not included among the respondents. The AMLC also did not include in its charge sheet RCBC president-on-leave Lorenzo Tan, who was aware of the questionable transactions based on Deguito’s testimony.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue on Tuesday confirmed it is conducting a separate investigation into the personalities and companies involved in money laundering scandal for possible tax liabilities.
“Whoever needs to be investigated will be investigated,” said Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares.
Julia Bacay-Abad, AMLC executive director, told the Senate Tuesday that the agency was digging deeper into the biggest money laundering scandal that it would file more cases depending on the outcome of their investigations. – With Gabrielle Binaday and Julito G. Rada