'Bangladesh may soon get USD 15.25m of stolen reserve money'

Bangladesh's central bank will soon get back from the Philippines USD 15.25 million of the USD 81 million reserve money stolen by hackers in February, a senior official has said.
"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," General Manager of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit of Bangladesh Bank Debaprosad Debnath said.
"We hope it will take maximum one week to deposit the money in our account," said a senior executive of the central bank who is working with the money recovering process was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune.

"According to a court order, November 24 is the last deadline to return the money", the official said.
Earlier on October 30, the Manila court cleared an 'execution suit' outlining the procedures for sending back USD 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 USD 15.25 million, a portion of hacked USD 81 million to the Bangladesh's central bank.

Earlier, some USD 68,000 left with the RCBC bank had been sent back to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
"Of the rest USD 65.68 million, USD 30 million has been frozen 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 USD 65.68 million still remains unidentified but Bangladesh Bank expects that the money can be recovered from Solaire casino if we get court order in 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.

Hackers tried to steal some USD one billion from Bangladesh Bank's settlement account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York in February by sending fraudulent transfer orders.
Of the 35 transfer orders sent, 30 were blocked. Four transfers to a Philippine bank for a total of USD 81 million went through. A USD 20 million transfer to a Sri Lankan company was reversed because the hackers mis-spelled the name of the company.