Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — The Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) issued a freeze order on the P10.2 million sitting in the bank accounts of businessman Kam Sin Wong and companies Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co., Ltd. and Centurytex Trading.
In a decision released on Wednesday (April 20), the court granted a provisional asset preservation order, which forbids the withdrawal, transfer, conversion, or removal of the money from the bank accounts in the next 20 days.
The RTC said it found probable cause that the money came from unlawful activity, stolen from Bangladesh Bank by Chinese hackers.
It added that there was “imminent certainty” that the money was going to be moved and “placed beyond the reach of the law.”
In February, $81 million was wired to four bank accounts in Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC). It was later found to be taken by hackers from the Bangladesh Bank’s account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Despite stop orders requested by the Bangladesh central bank, the money was quickly consolidated in the RCBC bank account of William Go, under the business name Centurytex Trading. Go denied the account is his.
Afterwards, the money was taken out of RCBC, converted to pesos through remittance firm Philippine Remittances Service Corporation (PhilRem) then transferred to casinos.
A total of $29 million went to Solaire Resort and Casino, $21.2 million to Wong’s Eastern Hawaii, and $30.6 million to a Chinese gambler named Weikang Xu.
Of the $21.2 million or roughly P1 billion that went to Eastern Hawaii, Wong said he personally took P450 million as a debt repayment from a certain Gao Shuhua. Wong named Gao and Ding Zhize as the masterminds in laundering the stolen money.
A small piece of the puzzle
This is the first step in the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s (AMLC) civil forfeiture case — its attempt to recover some of the $81 million for return to the Bangladesh Bank.
The Manila RTC set a hearing for May 2. AMLC Executive Director Julia Bacay-Abad has been quoted as saying she doesn’t expect opposition from Wong or Go in reclaiming the money.
Bacay-Abad said the trial could be concluded in three months and the money could be turned over to its rightful owners.
However, this forfeiture plea is but a small piece of the puzzle. The P10.2 million is easily dwarfed by the P452 million Wong has voluntarily returned to the AMLC. The businessman claimed he didn’t know the money came from hackers.
All together, the funds returned by Wong and the assets frozen by AMLC add up to just P462.2 million, roughly $10 million out of the missing $81 million.
The AMLC has said though that this would not be the only forfeiture case they would file. Even if the money is long gone, Abad has said the watchdog could still run after those implicated and seize equivalent assets.
