Ex-RCBC treasurer, 5 others charged over bank heist

A former treasurer of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and five other officers and employees were charged before the Department of Justice for violating Republic Act 9160, the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001 in connection with the $ 81- million cyber heist involving funds of the Bangladesh Bank.

The Anti-Money Laundering Council charged former RCBC treasury and retail banking group head Raul Victor Tan, national sales director Ismael Reyes, regional sales director Brigette Capiña, district sales director Nestor Pineda, customer service head Romualdo Agarrado and former senior customer relations officer Angela Ruth Torres.

Both Agarrado and Torres were assigned to the Jupiter branch under branch manager Maia Santos- Deguito, who was dismissed for allegedly facilitating the entry and release of the money stolen from Bangladesh Central Bank last February.

Former RCBC president and CEO Lorenzo Tan was not included in the charge sheet.

He tendered his resignation last May 6 after he was cleared by an RCBC internal investigation.

He was replaced by former Development Bank of the Philippines president Gil Buenaventura.

In a 97-page complaint-affidavit filed last Nov. 18, AMLC said investigations showed the respondent officers and employees of RCBC facilitated the suspicious transactions involving the accounts of a certain Michael Cruz ($6 million), Jessie Christopher Lagrosas ($30 million), Alfred Vergara ($20 million) and Enrico Vasquez ($ 25 million) despite stop-payment requests from the Bangladesh Central Bank.

The funds were transferred to the account of William Go, who owns Centurytex Trading, and eventually to Philrem Services Corp. owned by the Bautista couple.

Philrem has been trading with RCBC’s Treasury Department over the past three years.

AMLC’s Investigation Audit Group said the RCBC Jupiter branch committed knowyour-customer lapses on the accounts involved.

AMLC said the respondents failed “to conduct the requisite investigations and inquiries into the accounts, their beneficiaries and the transactions attributable to their knowledge about the unlawful origins of the funds or their deliberate refusal to know the unlawful origins of the funds.”

Tan joined RCBC in December 2008 as first vice president in treasury and was also appointed as concurrent head of the retail banking group and acting head of treasury from 2013 to 2015.

He ceased to be head of the retail banking group in January 2016 but remained head of treasury.

Tan resigned from RCBC last April 20.

In the complaint-affidavit, AMLC said Tan violated the Anti-Money Laundering Law after ordering the immediate lifting of the hold order on the transactions without conducting enhanced due diligence.

It said red flags are circumstances that point to suspected money laundering schemes and are intended to inform banks of suspected money laundering and fraud.

“Tan placed no importance to these red flags – to the risks for money laundering – that the accounts posed. In fact, these red flags point to knowledge of the tainted source of funds,” the AMLC said.

It said Tan failed to convene RCBC’s AML committee and escalate the money laundering alerts and at the same time failed to explicitly deter successive foreign exchange treasury transactions despite knowledge of the unlawful nature of the funds.

The AMLC said Tan, Reyes, Capiña and Pineda failed to conduct enhanced due diligence and placed too much reliance on the unsubstantiated allegations of Deguito on the accounts.

It filed money laundering charges against Deguito and the four fictitious account holders last March 15 and against casino junket operators and agents Kim Wong and Weikang Xu last March 22.