BB heist: $14.54m retrieved so far  

Bangladesh Bank has so far retrieved $14.54 million of the $81 million stolen from its account at the New York Federal Reserve on February 5 last year. The process of recovering the remaining $66.4 million is underway, according to a press statement of the central bank. The statement, issued on Sunday, reads a Philippines court froze $29 million that was transferred to Solaire Casino, and the issue is now subjudice at the country’s apex court. The court concerned also issued an asset preservation order (APO) to the accounts of two employees of casino owner Kim Aung, where money equivalent to $1.2 million was found. The process of sending the money back to Bangladesh is pending with a regional court in Manila. Several observations and findings reveal that money worth around $77 million has been in the remittance company Philrem which Anti-Money Laundering Council of the Philippines is preparing to sue, the statement adds. Some staff of the country’s Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation have been held accountable as they were found to have been involved in the heist. The Department of Justice in the Philippines has been providing required legal assistance to Bangladesh in recovering the money at the latter’s request.  The department also lodged a criminal case against seven people for their alleged involvement in one of the world’s biggest cyber heists. Bangladesh Bank has been maintaining a regular contact with the authorities concerned in the United States to get back the stolen money and take actions against those involved.  Also, it is contacting the authorities concerned in China as two Chinese nationals were recently arrested for their alleged involvement in the heist of the bank’s money. Currently, intelligence agencies of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and the United States are probing  cyber-hacking incidents that resulted in the siphoning off huge amounts of money from the countries. Contacted, Bangladesh Bank’s executive director and spokesman told the Dhaka Tribune: “We have noticed that there has been created some confusion over the recovery of the stolen money as some misleading reports and propaganda are making the rounds in media. This is because we have clarified what we are doing to retrieve the money.”