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There were certain indications about who the hackers were,
Bangladesh Ambassador John Gomes told a panel looking into how
the $81 million in stolen money ended up in the Philippines,
citing information shared by the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
Gomes said the hackers were neither in the Philippines nor in
Bangladesh, but he had no other information.
"One of our bank officials who is in the group that makes
payments, that passes the payment instructions, his computer was
hacked," Gomes said.
"It was a Friday when the attack happened and the Bangladesh
central bank is totally shut down. It was all sealed and no one
goes to the bank on that day."
There was no evidence directly linking anyone in Bangladesh to
the February cyber heist, Gomes said.
The hackers sent fraudulent messages, ostensibly from the
central bank in Dhaka, on the SWIFT system, to the New York
Federal Reserve seeking to transfer nearly $1 billion from
Bangladesh Bank's account there.
Most of the transfers were blocked but about $81 million was
sent to a bank in the Philippines. It was moved to casinos and
casino agents and much of it is missing.
Ralph Recto, one of the Philippine senators leading the
investigation, said in April Chinese hackers were likely to have
pulled off the heist, citing a network of Chinese people
involved in routing the stolen funds through Manila.
China has dismissed the suggestion.
Bangladesh Bank officials have said they believed SWIFT, and the
New York Fed, bear some responsibility for the cyber heist, but
SWIFT has rejected the suggestion.
The Philippine inquiry has helped recover $15 million of the
stolen funds, but the head of the Philippine anti-money
laundering council, Julia Abad, said it would take three to five
months before the money, now subject of a forfeiture case, could
be returned to Bangladesh.
Senators wrapped up their investigation on Thursday but they
were nowhere near finding the truth of what happened as they
were hamstrung by the country's strict bank secrecy laws and as
casinos fall outside the ambit of the anti-money laundering law.
(Writing by Karen Lema; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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