Hacking of money from Bangladesh Bank

The handling of the financial scam has been riddled with inefficiency and gaps in
communications

At long last, Bangladesh Bank (BB) has formally informed the ministry of finance about the
details of money reportedly hacked and then laundered from its account with the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York. According to BB officials, hackers stole the money from the BB
account 5 February. The hackers then transferred the hacked money to banks of the

Philippines and Sri Lanka by using online systems. Soon after the BB came to know about
the swindle, it started working on the issue secretly. We fail to understand why the
investigation process of such a big-scale scam involving the national interest had to be carried
out in secret? Why did it take the BB over a month to issue an official letter for informing the
finance ministry? How could it be possible that the finance ministry was not aware of the
small portion of money recovered from Sri Lanka as of last Monday?
The handling of the financial scam is not only riddled with inefficiency and gaps in
communications, but also with noticeable lacks in transparency and accountability from the
BB’s end. Moreover, BB did not officially disclose the exact figure which was hacked over a
month ago. But it has since been learnt that about $100 million had been hacked and later
some $20 million was recovered on last Monday. We expect BB to provide details with more
clarity and accuracy in this regard.

However, a central bank press statement issued on Monday stated that its Bangladesh
Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) is currently investigating with its counterpart—the Anti-
Money Laundering Council (AMLC) of the Philippines—actively to recover the rest of the
stolen money. The AMLC has already filed a case in the Philippines and also had collected
the court order to freeze accounts involved in the hacking. Additionally, a World Bank cyber
expert and his Forensic Investigation team are co-operating with the BB team too. We expect
their joint-efforts to succeed in identifying the criminals while recovering the rest of the
hacked and laundered amount.

In the digital age of increasing numbers tech-savvy cyber criminals— operating from various
parts across the globe—it’s not easy to safeguard deposits, transactions and security systems.
Breaching of security systems, hacking and laundering can surely happen, so it becomes even
more important to adopt advanced techniques to prevent them; detect risk factors beforehand;
identify the criminals and put them behind bars. According to BB officials, the laundered
money can potentially be recovered through the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (STAR), if
so then they should resort to it without delay. Managing the nation’s money is serious
business and should not to be taken frivolously.