Kim Wong returns another 200 million pesos over Bangladesh Bank heist

Filipino businessman Kam Sin Wong alias Kim Wong has returned another 200 million pesos of stolen Bangladesh Bank funds to Philippines’ anti-money laundering authorities.

His company Eastern Hawaii Leisure Company Ltd returned the money, equivalent to US$4.34 million, on Monday to the Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC), reports Filipino online newspaper ‘Rappler’.

“It will be returned to the people of Bangladesh,” AMLC Executive Director Julia Bacay-Abad was quoted by Rappler saying at a Senate hearing on Tuesday over the $81-million Bangladesh Bank cyber heist.

This is in addition to the $4.63 million Wong's legal counsel turned over to AMLC on Mar 31, and 38.28 million pesos ($830,595.50) on Apr 4.

With the latest return of stolen funds, a total $9.8 million has been handed back to AMLC.

The Rappler report says Wong’s company got hold of 1 billion pesos ($21.575 million) of the funds stolen from Bangladesh Bank’s account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

It said that Wong claimed he received 450 million pesos from Chinese businessman Gao Shuhua as payment. Shuhua is one of the two who reportedly facilitated the flow of the stolen money to casinos in Philippines.

“Wong said the P200 million returned is part of the promised P450 million to be turned over to AMLC,” reads the report.

According to Wong, another 550 million pesos went through the gaming tables and 510 million of that amount was lost to Midas Hotel and Casino, says the report.

Philippine senators also urged operators of Midas Hotel and Casino as well as Solaire Resort and Casino to return the dirty money.

Wong reportedly said that about $63 million of the stolen money went to Solaire and Midas, while the remaining $17 million is supposedly still with PhilRem, a claim the remittance company denied.

However, the turning over of the stolen money to Bangladesh “will take a little time,” Rappler quoted Bangladesh Ambassador John Gomes saying.

According to Philippine laws, without written consent from Wong, the recourse would have to be a civil forfeiture case in court, which is set to be filed by AMLC in the coming days, said AMLC Executive Director Bacay-Abad.

In February this year, computer hackers attempted to steal more than $1 billion from Bangladesh’s account at the New York Fed, according to Bangladesh Bank officials investigating the theft.

The size of the transactions triggered concern, which led to the Fed blocking some of the transfers, but the thieves were able to move about $81 million to accounts in the Philippines and another $20 million to a bank in Sri Lanka.

The transfer of Bangladesh funds to Sri Lanka could be stopped following a spelling error by the hackers. The remaining funds found their way to and beyond the Philippines.