Bangladesh’s Central Bank received a big jolt when some hackers succeeded in using stolen bank credentials to steal
US $ 81 from its account at the New York Federal Reserve in February 2016. Hackers used the stolen information with hopes to try to steal US $ 1 billion by sending three dozen SWIFT messages. All of their attempts were not successful but they still succeeded in transferring US $ 81 million to four accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. in Manila. Most of this money has already been laundered through the casinos located in Manila, Philippines. However, US $ 30 million out of this amount remains frozen at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.

This case was brought up in the Philippines’ Supreme Court and it has already been proved that the transferred amount of US $ 81 million belongs to Bangladesh Bank. A team from Bangladesh was to visit Philippines in October, 2016 in order to get the process of getting back the frozen US $ 30 million back but the tour was canceled due to some internal reasons. On November 11, 2016 Philippine authorities began the process of handing over $ 15.25 million to Bangladesh. The Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank, Mr. Abu Hena Mohammad Razee Hassan, who also heads the bank’s Financial Intelligence Unit has stated that he is hopeful in getting back the full US $ 30 million which was frozen before it could be laundered.