$15 mn of Bangladesh Bank stolen reserve money due in a week

Bangladesh Bank (BB) will get back $15.25 million of heist reserve from the Philippines in a week, eight months after hackers stole $101 million from Bangladesh's account at the New York Federal bank, authorities said.

General Manager of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit of Bangladesh Bank, Debaprosad Debnath, on Sunday 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 on the condition of anonymity.

"According to a court order, November 24 is the last deadline to return the money," he said.

Earlier on October 30, the Manila court cleared an 'execution suit' outlining the procedures for sending back the $15.25 million.

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.

After stealing the money, the hackers transferred $81 million to four accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in Manila and another $20 million to a bank in Sri Lanka, though the transfer of $20 million to the island country was failed because of a spelling error by the hackers.

--IANS

sm/rn