A former Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) bank manager on Thursday, January 10, was found guilty of eight counts of money laundering in relation to the $81 million (Php4.22 trillion) funds stolen from Bangladesh’s central bank.
The Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 149 sentenced former RCBC bank manager Maia Santos Deguito to four to seven years in prison for each count on top of a $109 million (Php5.68 trillion) fine.
In 2016, a total of $81 million was hacked from the Bangladesh Bank with the New York Federal Reserve and was transferred to four RCBC accounts applied under Deguito’s branch on Jupiter Street, Makati City.
The money was then withdrawn and laundered through several casinos.
Deguito is said to have facilitated the transaction from the creation of the bank accounts to the transferring of the money but the former bank manager defended herself saying that she only followed instructions from the RCBC main office.
Following the conviction, Deguito maintained her innocence and claimed that she was a mere scapegoat in the crime. RCBC former president Lorenzo Tan and other officials were earlier cleared from the case.
Deguito’s lawyer, Demetrio Custodio, said that his client “could not have acted on this because her position at the bank was one of customer care and therefore she had no function that will relate to the operation of banking transactions.”
“I am disheartened to believe that due to the amount involved here, only a very lowly person is prosecuted by the government. There should be more people who should be liable to this other than a very lowly bank officer who had nothing to do with operational matters,” he added.
The case is deemed to be one of the biggest cyber-heists involving a Philippine bank.
PHOTO: Senate PRIB via InterAksyon
