DHAKA: Bangladesh filed a lawsuit against Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) of Philippines, with a court of United States of America, over the heist of $81 million from Bangladesh Bank (BB) reserve. 

BB Deputy Governor and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) chief Abu Hena Mohammad Razi Hasan said the case was filed with southern district court in USA Thursday (Jan 31) (USA local time).

“The case was filed to recover the reserve money of BB stolen from its account at Federal Reserve Bank of New York in United States and to bring the guilty to book,” said the BFIU chief.

“Those were benefited from the reserve theft and those were involved in it were made accused in the case,” he added.

Earlier, Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir, while declaring Monetary Policy for the second half of 2018-19 (FY19), said Bangladesh set to file a lawsuit against RCBC in USA on Wednesday. 

As formal procedures had not been finished on time, the case has been filed on Thursday (USA time). 

A delegation of Bangladesh Bank is now in USA.

The team consist of BB lawyer Ajmalul Hossain QC, BFIU general manager (GM) Debprosad Debnath, joint director Mohammad Abdur Rab and account & Budgeting Department GM  Zakir Hossain.

The BB heist took place in Feb 2016, when instructions to steal US$951 million from the central bank of Bangladesh, were issued via the SWIFT network.

Five transactions issued by hackers, worth $101 million and withdrawn from a BB account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, succeeded, with $20 million traced to Sri Lanka (since recovered) and $81 million to the Philippines (about $18 million recovered). 

The New York Fed blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to $850 million, at the request of Bangladesh Bank.

BDST: 1040 HRS, FEB 1, 2019
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