NY Fed, SWIFT renew pledge on stolen fund recovery

The New York Federal Reserve Bank and global payments network SWIFT have reiterated their pledge to help Bangladesh Bank retrieve the $81 million fund stolen from its reserve account.

Senior officials of the New York Fed, BB and SWIFT met in New York on Tuesday to continue discussions on the cyber fraud that occurred in early February. The assurance came in a joint statement issued by the New York Fed, SWIFT and the central bank.

The parties discussed certain technical details to enhance their mutual understanding of how the fraud occurred, and further discussed steps that have been and will be taken to remediate the event.

"The participants remain concerned about this event and recommitted to working together to recover the entire proceeds of the fraud as expeditiously as possible," they said in the statement.

The three parties agreed to bring the perpetrators to justice in cooperation with law enforcement agencies from other jurisdictions, and support international efforts to protect the global financial system from such attacks in future.

The BB was hit by the cyber heist by a gang that penetrated the central bank security and used malware to steal $951 million from the central bank's accounts with the New York Fed.

However, due to a basic typographical error, the series of transfers were stopped after $101m had been sent. Some $20m was returned straight away, while the rest has been frozen in banks in the Philippines.

The money entered the Filipino financial system through Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation. The incident prompted a Senate hearing in the Southeast Asian country.

Julia Bacay-Abad, executive director of the Anti-Money Laundering Council of the Philippines, said during a hearing that the AMLC is still looking for around $21 million as it already accounted for about $60 million.

These included $15 million turned over by casino junket operator Kim Wong, $28 million with Solaire Casino and $17 million allegedly with Philrem Services Corp.

Mohammed Farashuddin, head of a three-member government body that probed the theft, also told The Daily Star earlier that at least $54 million of the stolen money could be recovered.