Bangladesh rejects Philrem’s P-10m restitution offer

The Bangladeshi government has rejected an offer from a local money remittance company to return the more than P10 million it earned in handling the $81 million stolen from its central bank and which found its way to Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), reports Philippino daily the Philippine Star.

 

“Bangladesh has rejected the offer. Of course they are not interested in the P10 million. They are interested in recovering the $81 million,” Sen. Serge Osmeña III said yesterday in a television interview.

 

At Thursday’s Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on the money laundering scandal, Philippine Remittance Co. (Philrem) owner Salud Bautista said they would return the entire amount they earned to the ambassador of Bangladesh to Manila.

 

“We will prepare a check. It will represent every centavo our company earned from this series of transactions. We will be returning P10,474,654,” she said.

 

She apologized for her company’s involvement in handling the stolen funds. It was “unintended,” she said.

 

The $81 million allegedly stolen by Chinese hackers was transferred to four accounts in RCBC-Jupiter (Makati) branch, then to an account supposedly owned by businessman William So Go, then to Philrem, which delivered the bulk of the funds in pesos to Solaire Resort and Casino and Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co.