SWIFT team checks repair of hacked BB transaction system

A high-profile SWIFT team is now checking the follow-up actions recommended by its experts for repairing Bangladesh Bank's international transaction system wrecked by hackers.

Meanwhile, as the Philippine government authorities carried on the hunt for the siphoned BB reserves, casino junket operator Kim Wong, through his lawyers, returned Monday another amount of P38.28 million worth some $830,595.50 from the stolen money.

But the turnover hit a slight snag when authorities found two fake P500 bills amid the mountains of cash, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

The two-member SWIFT team, headed by its Managing Director for Asia-Pacific Eddie Haddad, met the newly appointed BB Governor, Fazle Kabir, on Monday afternoon, according to the central bank officials.

They also said the SWIFT team also met officials concerned of the central bank as well as investigators on the cyber heist that occurred early last February.

Earlier in middle of March, another two-member expert team of SWIFT had scanned its network at the central bank of Bangladesh to find out any clue about the hacked BB system.

The SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunica-tion) expert team had also collected information on overall cyber-security system including 'Back Office' under Accounts and Budgeting Department of the central bank, they added.

Talking to the FE, a BB senior official said the SWIFT expert team in its initial report recommended the authorities concerned of the central bank for upgrading the BB's SWIFT network to prevent the recurrence of such incident.

"We're using the SWIFT network for making overseas payment smoothly in a secure way," the central banker explained.

SWIFT provides a network that enables financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardised and reliable environment.

An IT (information technology) forensic expert team earlier had indentified that sophisticated malware was deployed by the attackers on the SWIFT servers to process and authorise SWIFT transactions.

Cybercriminals sent 35 orders, via the SWIFT financial messaging system, to transfer roughly $951 million out of the BB's account in the New York Fed on February 4 night  to a series of private accounts in other countries.

The Fed executed five of these orders, transferring a total of $101 million to four private accounts in the Philippines and one to the account of a non-governmental organisation in Sri Lanka.

It did not carry out the remaining 30 transfer orders, totaling $850 million, and instead sought reconfirmation from the BB.

Meanwhile, casino junket operator Kim Wong returned Monday another P38.28 million in stolen money from Bangladesh's central bank. But the turnover hit a slight snag when authorities found two fake P500 bills amid the mountains of cash, the Philippine Daily Inquirer has reported.

Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) Executive Director Julia Bacay-Abad confirmed that they found two counterfeit bills during the two-hour-long counting that started at 11 a.m. and ended 1 p.m.

Bacay-Abad and Wong's lawyer Victor Fernandez said Attorney Inocencio Ferrer Jr., had to shell out P1,000 to replace the fake banknotes, the report said, adding all P38.28 million were in denominations of P500 and P1,000.

The P38.28 million "represented the funds abandoned by Gao Shuhua in Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co. Ltd. and/or Midas Casino," said the report, referring to Fernandez.

The lawyer said it would take 15-30 days to raise some more funds before Wong could return another P450 million that was earlier borrowed by Gao, it mentioned.

Earlier, a Philippine casino operator had paid back US$4.63 million from the stolen Bangladesh reserve funds.

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