BB, NY Fed, SWIFT vow to work jointly to recoup $81m

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (NY Fed), Bangladesh Bank (BB) and SWIFT have reiterated their commitment to work together to recover the entire stolen $81 million from the Philippines.
The three parties have also decided to continue discussions about the cyber fraud event that occurred in early February this year.
These decisions were taken at a tripartite meeting, held in New York on Tuesday, according to the BB officials and a joint statement, issued by NY Fed. The meeting was scheduled to be concluded Wednesday.
"The participants remain concerned about this event and recommitted to working together to recover the entire proceeds of the fraud as expeditiously as possible, bring the perpetrators to justice in cooperation with law-enforcement from other jurisdictions, and lend support to multilateral international efforts to further protect the global financial system from these types of attacks in the future," said the statement.
The parties discussed certain technical details of the event to enhance their mutual understanding of how the fraud occurred, and further analyzed the steps that have been and will be taken to remediate the event and place BB's account at NY Fed on a path to more normalized long-term operations, it added.
"Different government agencies of the US may be invited to attend the Wednesday's meeting," a BB senior official, familiar with the stolen money recovery process, told the FE.
The central banker also said the BB team is giving priority to boosting up coordinated efforts among the parties for recovering the stolen money from the Southeast Asian country.
"Our team is also holding meetings with senior representatives of NY Fed and SWIFT side by side, expecting the former one to gear up efforts for recovering the stolen money," the BB official noted.
A four-member BB team, headed by Deputy Governor Abu Hena Mohd Razee Hassan, is participating at the two-daylong second tripartite meeting on the stolen money recovery.
The meeting is also reviewing the latest position on implementation of the joint statement, issued by the three parties after their first meeting, held in Basel of Switzerland on May 10, according to the BB official.
The cyber fraud took place on the night of February 4, sending a total of 35 transfer orders to NY Fed, where BB maintains its foreign-exchange account.
Nearly $20 million of the total siphoned off amount of $101 million was recovered from Sri Lanka. The lion's share of the money landed in the Philippines.   
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