Bangladesh decides to appeal against a top US court verdicts on two Philippine business entities accused of the cyber-heist of its reserves from the Fed six years ago.
"We've decided to go for appeal against the New York court verdict on the Philippine entities within 30 days," Ajmalul Hossain QC, who has been appointed by the Bangladesh Bank to assist the country in the lawsuit, told the FE Wednesday.
Earlier on April 8, the Supreme Court of the State of New York dismissed on jurisdiction grounds the case lodged against Bloomberry Resorts and Hotels Inc (BRHI), the operator of Solaire Resort & Casino and Eastern Hawaii, which are located in Manila.
But the US court rejected the dismissal petition of Kim Wong and ordered him to reply the complaint of the central bank.
"The case against Kim Wong will be continued in the court," the senior lawyer explained.
The central bank of Bangladesh filed the case with the US court in May 2020 against Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) and 19 other individuals and entities.
The case was brought against RCBC, the prime accused in the lawsuit, and others, alleging conversion, theft and misappropriation, aiding and abetting and conspiracy to commit the reserves heist.
The lawyer also said the US court has yet to pass verdict in the case against RCBC along with two others.
Earlier, six defendants, including RCBC, had filed dismissal petitions to the court in accordance with a notice served by Cozen O'Connor, a US law firm, on behave of the BB. "We expect that the rest of the verdicts will come in favour of us," Mr Hossain noted. In a filing with the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday, Bloomberry said the New York Court had last week granted its motion to dismiss the complaint filed by the Bangladesh Bank for a lack of jurisdiction, according media reports. Unknown hackers tried to steal nearly $1.0 billion from the BB account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February 2016, and succeeded in digitally sending $81 million into four accounts of RCBC in Manila in one of the biggest such cyber-heists.
The hackers implemented the cyber-fraud planning on the night of February 04 by sending a total of 35 transfer orders to the US Federal Reserve Bank, where BB maintains its foreign-exchange account.
Of the 35 transfer orders placed, 30 were blocked. Four transfer orders to the Filipino bank for a total of $81 million went through.
The rest $20 million, transferred to a Sri Lankan non-government organisation, was reversed, as the hackers misspelled the name of the entity. Nearly $20 million of the total siphoned-off amount of $101 million was recovered from Sri Lanka. The lion's share of the money landed in the Philippine junkets and a bank.
