Dhaka court wants probe report on central bank cyber heist on Apr 19

A Dhaka court has fixed Apr 19 for police to submit their investigation report in a case Bangladesh Bank has filed over the $81 million cyber heist from its account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last month.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court judge Mahbubur Rahman fixed the date on Wednesday, court police Sub-Inspector Jalal Ahmed said.

Central bank Joint Director Jubair Bin Huda filed the case with Motijheel police on Tuesday.

The case, lodged under the Money Laundering Prevention Act and the ICT Act, accuses hackers for the theft but names no one, Ahmed said.

The case was transferred to police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Tuesday.

On the same day the government formed a committee headed by former governor Mohammed Farashuddin to investigate the theft.

The finance ministry said the panel had been asked to submit an interim report within a month and the full report within 75 days.

Hackers stole $101 million of the central bank’s reserves from a US account in early February.

Of the funds, $81 million were wire-transferred to bank accounts in the Philippines and $20 million to Sri Lanka.

The amount despatched to Sri Lanka has been recovered, a Bangladesh Bank official said, but the remaining $81 million are yet to be retrieved.

The matter became public when Filipino newspaper Phillipine Daily Inquirer first reported the theft at the end of February.

Central bank governor Atiur Rahman, facing harsh criticism and intense pressure to resign for apparently covering up the incident, stepped down on Tuesday morning.