Businessman Go sues RCBC bank manager

BUSINESSMAN William Go yesterday sued Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) Jupiter branch manager Maia SantosDeguito and her deputy for falsification of documents as part of the laundering through the Philippines of $81 million stolen by computer hackers from the Bangladesh central bank.

Go said the false documents were used in opening a bank account in his name at the RCBC Jupiter branch that was used in laundering the money stolen from the account of Bangladesh Bank in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in early February.

Go charged that false documents were also used to withdraw P20 million from the account.

He denied owning the peso account in the RCBC Jupiter branch from which the P20 million was withdrawn.

‘Simulated forgery’

Deguito’s deputy Angela Ruth Torres has been tagged by an eyewitness, another employee in the Jupiter branch, as Deguito’s accomplice in moving the stolen money.

In a six-page criminal complaint filed in the Office of the City Prosecutor of Makati, Go accused the two women of “simulated forgery,” attaching withdrawal slips and other bank documents to prove his claim that the signatures in the false documents were written by different people.

Go also cited a report by Truth Verifier System, an independent entity providing private investigation and signature verification services that was submitted by RCBC to the Senate on March 17, to back his claims that his purported signature in the withdrawal slip dated Feb. 5, 2016, for P20 million was a forgery.

It was on Feb. 5 when the hackers wired $81 million they stole from Bangladesh Bank to four other US dollar accounts in the RCBC Jupiter branch.

Some of the funds were moved out of the RCBC Jupiter branch on that day.

Not his withdrawal

A new US dollar account under the name William Go was created and this was where about $ 66 million of the funds were consolidated, converted into pesos by remittance company Philrem and transferred to other bank accounts.

Some of the money found its way to local casinos and other banks.

Go said in his complaint that the withdrawal slip would show that Deguito approved the withdrawal while Torres, the senior customer relations officer, supposedly verified his signature.

“This clearly shows that I did not withdraw the amount of P20 million, as I did not know of, consent to, or participate in the opening of any bank account with RCBC Jupiter branch and any and all transactions had thereon, particularly this questioned withdrawal of P20 million in cash from my alleged peso account therein,” Go said.

Go also cited the testimony in the Senate on Thursday of Romualdo Agarrado, customer service head of the RCBC Jupiter branch, that he had never seen Go at the branch.

Agarrado testified that he counted the money and saw Torres and Jovy Morales, messenger of the branch, loading it into the car of Deguito.

Freeze order

“I was made aware that it is an established rule that a person in possession of a falsified document and makes use of the same, the presumption or inference is that person is the forger,” Go said.

In a phone interview, Go’s lawyer Manuel Esguerra said this was just the first of many falsification incidents for which Go would sue Deguito and Torres.

As he was earlier named by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) as a possible coconspirator because of the transactions made under his name in the RCBC Jupiter branch, all of Go’s bank accounts as well as those of his company Centurytex Trading were frozen by the Court of Appeals on March 1.

Go denied ownership of the US dollar account used to accept proceeds from the Bangladesh bank heist as well as another peso account that was apparently used for the rediscounting or conversion into cash of postdated checks payable to Centurytex Trading.

“In the past few weeks, my name and business enterprise, Centurytex, have been dragged into what has been labeled the biggest single money-laundering activity ever uncovered in the Philippines,” Go said.

Go, former owner of S&R Shopping, was not included in the money-laundering charges filed by the AMLC against Deguito last Friday.

In a separate petition, Go asked the Court of Appeals to lift the freeze order on his accounts.