Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – Deputy Governor of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) SK Sur Chowdhury denied a report claiming that he did not say the finance minister is not willing to make the BB probe report public.
Mr Chowdhury’s comments came following a report released by bdnews24.com, a news portal of Bangladesh, that quoted Col Shawkat Ali (retd), the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings, as saying that Mr. Chowdhury during Tuesday’s meeting said ‘Finance Minister AMA Muhith is not willing to make the probe report public’.
Mr. Sur Chowdhury told the BBN that he never uttered such type of comments at the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee.
“I only told the meeting that the probe report has already been submitted to the finance minister when I was asked about the report by the chairman of the committee,” the deputy governor explained.
A three-member committee headed by former BB Governor Mohammed Farasuddin was set up to probe the heist. The committee submitted its report to the finance minister on May 30.
The finance minister promised at that time to make the report public, but has repeatedly missed deadlines.
The committee asked the probe committee on BB reserve heist to submit a copy of its investigation report.
“That was a big incident. We think we also should have a copy of the probe report as only finance minister has it,” Mr. Ali was quoted by the Dhaka Tribune, a local newspaper as saying.
Hackers tried to steal nearly $1.0 billion from the BB account at the Fed early February this calendar year, and succeeded in digitally burgling out $81 million into four accounts at RCBC (Rizal Commercial Banking Corp) in Manila in what is dubbed biggest such cyber heist.
The cyber fraud took place on the night of February 04, sending a total of 35 transfer orders into the US Federal Reserve Bank where the BB maintains its foreign-exchange account.
Of the 35 transfer orders placed, 30 were blocked. Four transfers to the Philippine bank for a total of $81 million went through. The rest $20 million transferred to a Sri Lankan non-government organisation was reversed because the hackers mis-spelled the name of the entity.
Nearly $20 million of the total amount of $101 million siphoned off was recovered from Sri Lanka shortly after the trans-national cyber-heist.
BBN/SSR/AD