A BANGLADESHI official on Wednesday insisted that Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. must shoulder the missing chunk of the $81 million or around P4 billion stolen from its central bank in New York.
Law Minister Anisul Huq also dismissed RCBC’c claim that it had no reason to compensate Bangladesh’s central bank because it had admitted its fault and liability on the alleged cyber robbery.
“Whether Bangladesh is negligent or not, it is not relevant here,” Huq told reporters when asked to react on RCBC’s recent position on the issue.
He said it was not for RCBC to point its fingers on who should be blamed because the money from the central bank was stolen from the account of RCBC
“They should explain their conduct and the conduct has been very much culpable,” said Huq who went to the Philippines with Bangladeshi delegates to meet with government officials to speed up the return of their supposedly stolen money.
Huq said he and his delegation were flown here to recover the remaining $66 million of their allegedly stolen money.
The $81 million from the New York Federal Reserve was transferred to four accounts with fake names at one RCBC branch in Manila until the money was stolen by an unidentified thief.
The money was converted into pesos through the remittance firm PhilRem Service Corp. and then gambled away at several casinos.
On Tuesday, RCBC’s lawyer said in a statement that RCBC had no reason to compensate Bangladesh’s Bank as the lender had been “negligent.”
“RCBC is not the proximate cause of the theft. They have no case against us,” RCBC external counsel Thea Daep said.
Huq said the Philippine government would be the one to file legal actions against RCBC.
“Both civil and criminal proceedings are being initiated… Government officials assured us due process would be followed,” Huq said.
He said the Senate and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas had found that RCBC committed serious lapses, allowing the cyber thieves to hide their loot in fake bank accounts in the bank’s Jupiter branch in Makati City.
“It is clearly established that RCBC was very much involved in the scam, and they have admitted their liability,” Huq said.
“RCBC is to be blame.”