Bangladesh Bank (BB) hopes to get back $15.25 million of heist reserve from the Philippines after one week.
General Manager of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit of Bangladesh Bank Debaprosad Debnath yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune: “Philippine’s central bank Bangko Sentral Pilipinas (BSP) will send back the money in cash to Bangladesh Bank’s reserve account at Federal Reserve Bank (of New York) following Bangladesh’s appeal.”
“We hope it will take maximum one week to deposit the money in our account,” said a senior executive of BB who is working with the money recovering process.
“According to a court order, November 24 is the last deadline to return the money”, he said yesterday on condition of anonymity while talking to Dhaka Tribune.
Earlier on October 30, the Manila court cleared an ‘execution suit’ outlining the procedures for sending back $15.25 million of Bangladesh Bank’s reserve heist money from Philippines.
The execution suit order came more than one month after BB finally got a Philippines court order in its favour to get back a portion of hacked money that was forfeited and kept in the vault of the Philippine central bank.
On September 19, Philippine’s regional trial court in Manila ordered BSP to return around $15.25 million, a portion of hacked $81 million to the Bangladesh Bank.
Earlier, some $68,000 left with the RCBC bank had been sent back to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
“Of the rest $65.68 million, $30 million has been freezed in Solaire casino of Philippines. The legal procedure of returning the portion is ongoing in Philippines’ court,” said the Bangladesh Bank executive.
The rest of $65.68 million still remains unidentified but Bangladesh Bank expects that the money can be recovered from Solaire casino if we get court order at our favour, he said, adding that the value of assets of Solaire casino that was forfeited is far more than the BB’s heist portion left with the casino.
source: Dhaka Tribune