DOJ Philippines Dismisses Criminal Case Against Junket Operators from the Bangladesh Bank Heist

As reported by the local media, the Department of Justice in the Philippines recently acquitted two junket operators by dismissing the criminal case that allegedly reported their association with the bank heist in Bangladesh last year. According to a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Emilie Fe De Los Santos, the Senior Deputy State Prosecutor at the DOJ Philippines dismissed the case that had been filed against Weikang Xu and Kim Wong (the two junket operators) by the anti-money laundering watchdog in the country on the basis of lack of sufficient evidence to prove them guilty of the crime.

In February of 2016, a staggering $81m was reportedly transferred unauthorized to the accounts of an RCBC bank branch from the accounts of the Bangladeshi Bank at the New York’s Federal Reserve Bank. The RCBC bank branch was then being operated under Maia Santos- Deguito, the manager in charge.

Although, the identity of the perpetrators of the crime is yet to be established by the authorities, it is being speculated that the unauthorized transfer was actually carried out by professional hackers that are employed with the government of North Korea.

During a Senate probe last year, Wong had actively denied all charges of being involved in the illegal laundering of funds from the Bangladeshi bank accounts. He further revealed that the two junket operators from China, Ding Zhi Ze of Macau and Beijing’s Gao Shu Hua had been instrumental in the unauthorized funneling of funds into the Philippine bank accounts with the help of the branch manager Santos Deguito at the RCBC.

In addition to this, De Los Santos at the Department of Justice Philippines also revoked their earlier decision of holding the remittance company Philrem Service Corp’s executives responsible for the money laundering in the Bangladesh Bank Heist. The DOJ decision came after Anthony Pelejo, Michael Bautista and Salud Bautista had filed a motion at the department for proving themselves not guilty of the crime in the month of May.

According to the new resolution by the DOJ, the respondents had successfully provided an STR or Suspicious Transaction Report to offer substantial evidence against the charges filed. Since the STR had been duly submitted, the charges of money laundering filed by the Anti Money Laundering Task Force were reconsidered and finally dismissed by the DOJ.