US seeks banker’s help on Dhaka heist

Drug lords killed in jail

MANILA, Sept 28, (Agencies): The FBI is negotiating with a former branch manager of a Philippines bank for information relating to $81 million that she handled after it was stolen from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve, her lawyer said.

Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have presented a “proffer”, or proposal, to the branch manager, Maia Deguito, to tell them all she knows about who received the money, the attorney, Ferdinand Topacio, told Reuters.

He showed Reuters a copy of an unsigned proffer agreement.

According to Topacio, US investigators are trying to get Deguito, who has been fired by the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) for her role in the case, to share details about long-time bank client Kim Wong, who is a casino owner and agent.

Under the proposed agreement, any evidence Deguito gives will not be used to prosecute her, but she will be liable if she lies or hides any relevant information. She is currently on bail in a perjury case related to the heist.

In several face-to-face meetings in Manila, starting in May, the two sides also discussed relocating Deguito and her family - her husband and three children - to the United States, Topacio said. The United States has a visa programme for foreigners who assist law enforcement agencies but it is limited to 200 people a year.

Spokesmen for the FBI and the US Department of Justice declined comment. Deguito also declined comment.

Nearly eight months after the cyber heist, one of the biggest ever, investigations appear to have run up against a brick wall. From the New York Fed, the $81 million was sent by hackers to four accounts held in fake names at an RCBC branch in Manila where Deguito worked. The funds then changed hands several times and most of it vanished into the Philippines casino industry. About $18 million have been recovered in all.

No arrests have been made despite investigations by the FBI, Interpol, Bangladesh police and authorities in the Philippines.

Two sources in Bangladesh with knowledge of the FBI’s investigations confirmed that the American agency was trying to talk to “persons of interest” in the Philippines.

Topacio said negotiations with the US officials on the offer were continuing because the immunity offered to his client was only limited to her evidence.

“I thought that was dangerous. We want total immunity,” he told Reuters. “It’s not a finished...transaction.”

The proposed agreement mentions Deguito and her lawyer and has the names of Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara and Lamont Siller, the FBI’s legal attache at the US embassy in Manila, at the bottom of the form.

Wong has admitted in hearings during a Philippines Senate inquiry that he received millions of dollars of the funds from two Chinese gamblers but did not know they were stolen.

Wong has returned $15 million of around $35 million he said he received and that the rest was spent in buying gambling chips for clients. He has denied involvement in the heist.

Wong was not available for comment on this story and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, a man accused by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte of being the nation’s top drug trafficker was injured and a gang member killed during jailhouse knife attacks on Wednesday, authorities said.

Two other high-profile inmates were injured in the violence at Manila’s notorious Bilibid National Penitentiary, from where Duterte has said much of the nation’s illegal drug trade is run.

“It appears there was a knife fight,” Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said.

Duterte won the presidential election in a landslide in May after promising to kill 100,000 criminals as part of a campaign against illegal drugs.

More than 3,700 people have been killed in the less than three months he has been in office, prompting widespread criticism from Western governments and rights groups about a breakdown in the rule of law.

Duterte has railed against the criticism, vowing to do whatever is necessary to stop the Philippines from becoming a narco state.

He had targeted Bilibid prison as one of the hotspots for the drug trade and accused Peter Co, one of the men injured on Wednesday, as being the biggest drug trafficker.

On July 8 Duterte said Co ran a drug empire from inside his prison cell, supplying Manila and the main island of Luzon, with the help of corrupt officials in the previous government.

“So my appeal to them is, since they are beyond redemption, they can stop and commit suicide, because I will not allow these idiots to run their show. Not during my watch,” Duterte told reporters.

Prison officials said the six men involved in Wednesday’s violence were all top gang leaders who attacked each other at a maximum-security wing of the jail, where they had been segregated as a security measure.

They did not explain how the weapons got into the jail.

The man killed was Tony Co, no relation to Peter Co but a member of the same prison gang and also a convicted drug trafficker.

Senator Leila de Lima, one of Duterte’s most outspoken critics over the killings in the war on crime, accused the government of organising the knife attacks.

“It makes this government an assassin state,” de Lima told reporters.

Both Duterte and Aguirre denied de Lima’s allegation.

Duterte has in turn accused de Lima of being involved in the prison drugs trade when she was justice secretary in the previous government, allegations she denies.

The president’s allegations are being investigated by the House of Representatives, which last week heard testimony from seven other Bilibid jail gang bosses about De Lima’s supposed role in the prison drugs trade.

Aguirre has said he planned to put Peter Co and two of the other wounded inmates on the witness stand at the next hearing, but the House has not set the date for the next hearing.

Deguito