RCBC case nothing but retaliation, says BB Governor

The lawsuit filed recently by the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) in Manila against Bangladesh Bank (BB) with a Filipino court was in retaliation against a case that had been lodged by BB at a New York court in February seeking the return of hacked money.  
This was observed by BB Governor Fazle Kabir while talking to journalists after attending Janata Bank's annual conference in the city's Krishibid Institute on Wednesday. He said, "It will not hurt our process of recovering money though legal battle." The Governor said, "Our high profile team is already
visiting the Philippines and after their arrival we will learn details from them." The team, led by Abu Hena Mohammad Razee Hassan and head of the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit, is scheduled to return on Wednesday.
"RCBC has filed the defamation suit in retaliation to Bangladesh Bank's case to recover the fund stolen from its foreign exchange account with the New York Fed," he said.
On March 6, the Filipino bank filed the case with a Manila court claiming that the BB's demand for getting back the stolen money from the RCBC was 'baseless.' Moreover, it demanded reparation of Tk 165 crore for damage to its reputation.
In February 2016, cyber gangsters had taken away US$81 million from the BB's account with the New York Fed. The money was slipped into the RCBC's Jupiter Street branch in Makati City. It was quickly withdrawn and eventually laundered through local casinos.
Earlier on January 10, a court in the Philippines convicted Maia Deguito, then branch manager at the Manila-based RCBC, on charge of money laundering, in the first conviction over the BB heist. RCBC has also returned $15 million so far which essentially suggests the bank has accepted its responsibility.