Commuters pass by the front of the Bangladesh central bank building in Dhaka March 8, 2016. REUTERS/Ashikur Rahman/File Photo

MANILA (Reuters) - A Philippine regional trial court has ordered the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to return to the Bangladesh central bank a recovered portion of the $81 million that was stolen from the bank earlier this year, a government lawyer said on Monday.

The court has declared Bangladesh as the rightful owner of the funds, totaling $15 million, Ricardo Paras III, chief state counsel of the Philippines’ Department of Justice, said while reading a copy of the court’s ruling to a Reuters reporter.

Unknown hackers tried to steal nearly $1 billion from the Bangladesh central bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in early February, and succeeded in transferring $81 million to four accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in Manila.

During a Philippine Senate hearing into the heist which ended in May, a casino junket operator claimed to have received $35 million of the stolen funds but only returned $15 million. It is not clear what happened to the remainder of the money.

Bangladesh had to file a petition staking its claim to the money before it could be turned over to them.

“(The) court ordered the release of the cash now in the BSP vault in favor of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh,” Paras told Reuters.

Bangladesh is also seeking to recover another $2.7 million frozen by the Philippines’ casino regulator. </s> The court has declared Bangladesh as the rightful owner of the funds, totaling $15 million, Ricardo Paras III, chief state counsel of the Philippines' Department of Justice, said while reading a copy of the court's ruling to a Reuters reporter.

Unknown hackers tried to steal nearly $1 billion from the Bangladesh central bank's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in early February, and succeeded in transferring $81 million to four accounts at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in Manila.

During a Philippine Senate hearing into the heist which ended in May, a casino junket operator claimed to have received $35 million of the stolen funds but only returned $15 million. It is not clear what happened to the remainder of the money.

Bangladesh had to file a petition staking its claim to the money before it could be turned over to them.

"(The) court ordered the release of the cash now in the BSP vault in favor of the People's Republic of Bangladesh," Paras told Reuters.

Bangladesh is also seeking to recover another $2.7 million frozen by the Philippines' casino regulator. </s> Money to the value of £211,000,000 has been seized by the United Kingdom from a Jersey bank account that belonged to former Head of State, General Sani Abacha, reports MetroUK on Tuesday.

General Sani Abacha was head of state between 1993 until his death in 1998.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on several occasions questioned the veracity of reports that Abacha looted billions of dollars from the country’s treasury.

The report said Abacha laundered money through the US into the Channel Islands and now that money has been recovered.

It noted that the money was put in accounts held in Jersey by Doraville Properties Corporation, a British Virgin Islands company.

The money, it said, is now being held by the government until authorities in Jersey, the US and Nigeria come to an agreement on how it should be distributed.

It also noted that any money that Jersey does keep will be put into the Criminal Confiscation Fund, which is used to pay for a variety of projects.

In the past, it noted, the fund has been used for the new police station and developments at La Moye Prison.

It is expected that even more money held by Doraville is likely to be seized and paid into the Civil Asset Recovery Fund in the future, the report noted.

“In restraining the funds at the request of the United States of America, through whose banking system the funds were laundered prior to arriving here, and in achieving the payment of the bulk of the funds into the Civil Asset Recovery Fund, Jersey has once again demonstrated its commitment to tackling international financial crime and money laundering”, Attorney General Robert MacRae said.

The report noted that in 2014, at the request of the US authorities, the Island’s Attorney General applied for, and the Royal Court granted, a restraining order over the Jersey bank account balance of Doraville. The purpose of the restraining order was to preserve the money until a final civil asset recovery order could be registered in the Royal Court, MetroUK noted.

It said Doraville applied to the Royal Court for the restraint order to be discharged, but the Royal Court dismissed the application in 2016. Then in 2017, Doraville challenged the Royal Court’s decision, taking the case to Jersey’s Court of Appeal, it said.

That challenge was again rejected. Finally, following the decision of Jersey’s Court of Appeal, Doraville made an application to appeal against the restraint order before the Privy Council – Jersey’s ultimate appellate court, the reported explained.

It said in February 2018 the Privy Council announced its rejection of this final legal challenge. Last week, Solicitor General Mark Temple gave a presentation in Vienna, Austria, about Doraville at a UN conference on corruption.

He said: “The conference of the States Parties to the United Nations convention against corruption is an important international forum concerned with anti-corruption measures and asset returns.

“The conference was a good opportunity to demonstrate progress with the Doraville case, as well as Jersey’s determination to deal with international financial crime more generally.”
A court in the Philippines orders the central bank to return US$15 million back to Bangladesh.