Businessman Kim Wong suspected mastermind behind Bangladesh Bank heist, says Philippines Senator

Chinese-origin Filipino businessman Kam Sin Wong alias Kim Wong is suspected to be the mastermind behind the theft of Bangladesh Bank’s $81 million, reports the Philippines' Daily Inquirer.

News Deskbdnews24.com
Published : 20 March 2016, 08:57 AM
Updated : 20 March 2016, 09:15 AM

It quoted Senator Serge Osmeña saying that Rizal Commercial Banking Corp’s Branch Manager Maia Santos-Deguito ‘is not the most guilty party in the caper’.

The report said that Senator Osmeña described Deguito as a ‘credible witness’ after she was questioned by senators in a closed session on Thursday.

“It was Wong who asked Deguito to open the bank accounts where the $81 million were wired to, and who instructed her to use the services of foreign exchange remittance company Philrem Services Inc,” the Daily Inquirer quoted the senator saying.

The senator added that Wong will be given the chance to explain his role when he faces the Senate blue ribbon committee, which is investigating the laundering of the money stolen by hackers from Bangladesh Bank’s US account.

“There is an orchestrator here, a mastermind and right now, it looks like it’s Kim Wong, but we have to give him a chance and let him come back from his trip abroad to testify before the committee,” the Senator told reporters in an interview on Friday.

 “He’s a big player in this. He’s a missing link.”

Wong is undergoing medical treatment outside the Philippines, says the Inquirer report quoting his lawyer.

Maia Santos-Deguito

Asked why Deguito allowed Wong’s requests, Osmeña said the two knew each other.

According to him, Wong requested Deguito to open five dollar accounts, providing the information sheets and introducing the account holders to her during a meeting at Midas Hotel, reads the report by Daily Inquirer.

Deguito checked their IDs and later she was sent $2,500 by messenger for the dollar accounts, Osmeña said.

Only four of the five accounts were used to receive the $81 million. The fifth account, under the name Picache, was not used, he said.

Meanwhile, according to report by ABS-CBN, Wong had faced the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee 15 years ago.

He was summoned by the senate committee and appeared before it in August 2001, as a part of an investigation involving illegal drugs and other criminal activities.

The transcripts of that hearing revealed Wong was a senator’s conduit to the drug mafia, says the report.

 It said that Wong came to the Philippines when he was 10. While in college, he dropped out of school and took a job as a sales agent of tobacco company.

“It was not clear how he became a self-styled businessman moving around with some police generals and politicians,” reads the ABS-CBN report.