A Philippine appeals court has confirmed an earlier decision to lift an asset freeze order covering the Chinese owner of a Philippine casino once accused of laundering some of the US$81 million stolen in a 2016 hacking robbery by Bangladesh’s central bank.
The Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Commission appealed against the court’s April 29 decision, which it said had not abused its authority to lift what was known as an “asset preservation order” for multiple bank accounts involving multiple individuals and companies. 파친코
The latest ruling, dated Aug. 2, was taken after a “careful and careful study” of the “benefits of the case” related to the freezing of bank accounts linked to Eastern Hawaii Leisure Limited’s Kamsin Wong and Chaochao Wendy Wang and Dongnash, respectively, in Kagayan, northern Philippines.
Earlier, the appellate court said that handing over the money stored in the account to the Anti-Money Laundering Council recognized that cash came from hacking theft, but the Philippine authorities did not prove that the bank account that kept it was actually opened to receive stolen money.
In its Aug. 2 decision, the court said the motion of the Anti-Money Laundering Council “did not provide a compelling and compelling reason to give a new substantive issue or justification to reconsider the court’s ruling.”
In March 2016, Mr Wong’s lawyers, also known as ‘Kim Wong’, handed over $4.63 million in connection with the Bangladesh bank robbery to the office of the anti-money laundering commission.
The Manila trial court later said the act was evidence of Mr. Wong’s good faith.
In September 2017, Philippine prosecutors confirmed a preliminary decision not to file criminal charges against Mr. Wong and a person called the “Junkit” operator in connection with theft in 2016.
It has been linked to the hacking of Bangladesh bank accounts held with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The stolen US$81 million was transferred to four accounts at the Rizal Commercial Bank branch in Makati, Metro Manila. The funds were later transferred to the Philippine casino, where most of them disappeared.
Of the total inflows into the Philippine financial system, only a small percentage have been returned to Bangladesh.