Part of the stolen Bangladeshi funds made it to Philippine casinos
PAGCOR declared that out of the US$81 million that entered the Philippines, only US$46 million ended up in the local casino industry.
The Philippines.- The Philippine Amusement Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) stated that the Bangladeshi stolen funds were split into US$26 million which were channelled into the account of Solaire Resort and Casino and US$20 million which were directed to the accounts of Easter Hawaii Casino and Resort at the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority in Santa Ana, Cagayan province.
The US$81 million are suspected to be part of nearly US$1 billion hackers stole from the Bangladesh central bank’s current account in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
A ranking official of Pagcor, which is in charge of regulating gaming activities in the country, said: “Only a portion (of the $81 million) went to the local casinos and these were all used to bet at the tables and buy chips. The rest of the funds never entered the local casino system. So, we don’t know where those funds went. Some of the funds were used to cover losses incurred by the players.”
He added that the accounts that held the funds were frozen by the Court of Appeals acting on a request by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC.) However, before the freeze order was issued on March 1, the funds were being used for betting at the casinos’ tables.
It is not clear at this point, how much of the stolen funds were frozen by the AMLC order or how any of the funds would be disposed of, or whether they would be turned over to Bangladeshi authorities.
