Philippines bank at heart of Bangladeshi bank heist says it might repay funds

The Philippines bank at the center of the great Bangladeshi Bank Heist of ’16 says it’s prepared to comply if the Philippines government orders the bank to make up some of the Bangladeshi losses.

On Tuesday, Philippine senators held their latest public hearing into February’s digital theft of $101m from Bangladeshi central bank accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Around $81m of this stolen cash ended up in the accounts of a Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) branch in Manila before spreading through the local casino industry.

So far, junket operator Kam Sin ‘Kim’ Wong has returned close to $5.5m of the cash that two Chinese junket agents transferred to various accounts at the Solaire Resort and Casino and the Midas Hotel casino.

Wong has also offered to hand over nearly $10m he claims to have received from one of the junket agents as repayment for a personal debt. Wong further claimed that another $17m was still in the hands of local remittance firm Philrem Services Inc, a claim that Philrem execs continue to deny.