FBI probes cybertheft of $81M from Bangladesh

THE US Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the cybertheft of tens of millions of dollars from the Bangladesh central bank’s account in the United States, the US-based Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

FBI agents are looking for evidence in the United States and beyond to determine who was behind the theft, which transferred money from the Bangladesh central bank account in New York to the Philippines, the Journal reported.

Unknown hackers breached the computer systems of Bangladesh Bank between Feb. 4 and 5, and attempted to steal $951 million from its account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which it uses for international settlements.

Some attempted transfers were blocked, but $81 million was transferred to accounts in the Philippines in one of the largest cyber heists in history.

A spokesperson for the FBI in New York declined to comment.

The theft prompted the head of Bangladesh Bank to resign and has triggered concerns over the safety of the financial system in the Philippines after the funds were transferred to Manila to a branch of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and passed on to a foreign exchange broker, which transferred it to a casino junket operator and two casino companies.

Little hope of recovery

Bangladesh Bank has said there is little hope of apprehending the perpetrators and that recovering the money would be difficult and could take months.

FireEye Inc.’s Mandiant forensics division is helping investigate the cyber heist. The bank has also been in touch with the Fed and other US authorities, including the FBI and the Department of Justice.

In Dhaka, the Bangladesh interior minister said the government had formally sought assistance from the FBI to track down the cyber crooks.

“We sought the FBI’s assistance when a group of FBI met with me for investigating the central bank heist last month,” Interior Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told Reuters.

An US embassy official in Dhaka told Reuters that Washington stood ready to assist the government of Bangladesh in its investigation.

A senior Bangladesh police official involved in the investigation said an FBI team was expected to visit the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police in Dhaka on Sunday. The CID was also coordinating with Interpol to track down the perpetrators.

“We are trying to find out what type of security there was, what safety measures were taken, and how the thieves penetrated the firewall,” he said.

The chief of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the largest opposition party said on Saturday that if elected they would ensure real autonomy for the central bank.

“There will be no interference or influence from the political party,” Begum Khaleda Zia said at a party conference.