Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Sunday said that Bangladesh Bank will file cases in New York by January for recovering remaining Bangladesh’s stolen reserve ahead of the deadline of February 3.
He, however, could not confirm whether the Federal Reverse, the central bank of the US, will be made a party in the cases against Rizal Commrcial Bank Corp of the Phillipines.
Kamal was talking to reporters after a marathon meeting of over a three and half hours at the ministry with Bangladesh Bank governor Fazle Kabir and financial institutions division secretary Asadul Islam.
A legal battle became imperative for the central bank following abortive diplomatic efforts with the Philippine government to recover the stolen fund since February 2016 after cyber thieves transferred $81 million from its accounts in New York Federal Reserve.
Manila returned only $15 million by an order of a regional Philippine court in November 2016 while the rest was said to be laundered in casinos there.
On January 10, 2019, a Philippine court jailed former Rizal branch manager Maia Deguito in the stolen reserve cases filed nearly three years ago.
Officials said that Rizal was also fined by the Filipino authority heavily but the government in Bangladesh was yet to make the probe report prepared by former central bank governor Farashuddin Ahmed public let alone hold the masterminds
Replying to a question whether the probe report would be made public he said they would consider such proposal if it is necessary.
Replying to another question, Mustafa said he do not know the amount demanded by the consultants appointed by Bangladesh Bank to run the legal battle.
He also said he had no information whether the amount was high.
