THE Senate Blue Ribbon Committee will resume its probe of the $81-million money laundering scheme on May 12, 2016 in a bid to reconcile the conflicting testimonies among the parties involved in the latest scandal known as cyber heist to rock the banking system here and other countries.
Committee chairman Senator Teofisto Guingona said the hearing intends to get more details from witnesses on where all the stolen money went since the $17 million in cash remained unaccounted for.
Guingona said the Senate inquiry is far from over as additional hearings are still needed to help the committee finish its recommendations for ways to finetune banking and anti-money laundering laws.
The reelectionist lawmaker said his committee still needs to get a clearer and more accurate picture of how $81 million in stolen funds were brought into the country and laundered here, and where all the money went after.
He noted that the committee’s 7th public hearing was set back by the failure of the lawyers of key witnesses Kim Wong, Maia Deguito and PhilRem to promptly submit their respective waivers on the disclosure of their phone records.
“During the April 19 hearing, three parties, Wong, Deguito, and PhilRem, have given the committee their verbal consent to look into their phone records between February 5 and 13. But as of today, none of their lawyers have submitted waivers allowing Globe to furnish us with these information,” Guingona said.
Guingona’s committee has summoned the phone records in question following the conflicting statements of Wong, Deguito, and the Bautista couple of PhilRem on who called whom during the deliveries of the stolen funds.
The parties have given conflicting testimonies at the Senate, particularly on the $17 million in cash that PhilRem claimed to have delivered to Chinese national Weikang Xu at Solaire casino in the presence of Wong, but which Wong claimed he never received.
Testimonies and pieces of evidence presented during the Senate hearings can be used by the Anti-Money Laundering Council and the Department of Justice in filing criminal suits against those accused in the laundering scheme as well as in civil forfeiture cases for the recovery of the stolen funds and their return to Bangladesh.
The next session is also set to hear the statement of PhilRem’s accountant, who has already resigned according to PhilRem president Salud Bautista. The accountant has been asked to appear after the April 12 hearing but remained incognito until the April 19 hearing was suspended.
“The committee also expects PhilRem to have produced their accountant by then. Otherwise, they will be cited for contempt,” Guingona warned.
The Blue Ribbon committee has traced how most of the $81 million came into the country on February 5, 2016 and how large amounts have been disbursed to casinos using numerous bank accounts, including allegedly fictitious accounts.
However, the committee has yet to determine who received and kept about $17 million delivered by PhilRem in cash.