BB heist probe report submission deferred for 87th time

A Dhaka court has once again deferred the date for submitting the probe report in the Bangladesh Bank reserve heist case to 26 August.

Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Zakir Hossain set the new date today (Thursday) as the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the investigating agency, failed to submit the report on the scheduled date.

Hackers stole $101 million from Bangladesh's central bank account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, using fake orders on the SWIFT payments system in February 2016.

Of the stolen amount, $81 million was transferred to four accounts with the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in Manila, and another $20 million to a bank in Sri Lanka.

However, the $20 million transfer to Sri Lanka failed due to a spelling error by the hackers, and the Bangladesh Bank got back that amount from Sri Lanka.

Later, the central bank of Bangladesh was able to retrieve only about $15 million from the Philippines.

Bangladesh Bank Deputy Director (accounts and budgeting) Zobayer Bin Huda filed a case with Motijheel police station on March 15, 2016, in this connection under the Money Laundering Act, Information and Communication Technology Act and the Penal Code.