Probe report submission deferred for 74th time

A Dhaka court on Wednesday deferred the date for submitting the investigation report of the case filed in connection with the stolen money from the Bangladesh Bank's account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in February 2016.
The court has asked the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to submit the probe report by November 9, 2023, in the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist case, said Md Shah Alam, General Register Officer (GRO) for Motijheel Police Station cases.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Chowdhury issued the order after Abdullah Al Yasin, additional superintendent of police and also the investigation officer of the case, failed to submit the probe report by Wednesday (September 20).
On July 31, the same court set September 20 as the deadline to submit the probe report. The CID has already spent more than seven years probing the case but has failed to submit the probe report yet.
On February 4, 2016, hackers broke into the central bank's system and generated 70 fake payment orders to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, amounting to $1.94 billion.
The New York Fed's security system flagged the payment orders, but five of them already got through, releasing $101 million.
Of it, at least $81 million was transferred to accounts in the Manila-based RCBC, from which it vanished into the casinos of the Philippines.
On March 15, 2016, Zobayer Bin Huda, the joint director of the Accounts and Budgeting Department at the Bangladesh Bank, filed a case with the Motijheel Police Station under the Money Laundering Prevention Act.
On March 22, 2016, the then Metropolitan Magistrate Md Mahbubur Rahman granted permission for the CID to conduct forensic tests on the hard disks of three Bangladesh Bank computers. The three hard disks were seized from the central bank after the heist occurred.
So far, Bangladesh has reclaimed $15 million from RCBC and recovered an additional $20 million sent to a bank in Sri Lanka.
On February 1 of last year, the Bangladesh Bank filed a lawsuit in a US court against Rizal Bank to recover $66 million of the stolen funds.

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