The hearing opened under a cloud of suspicion after a lawyer denied authenticating the sworn statement of Mark Palmares, a courier of foreign exchange broker Philrem, who detailed how he delivered a portion of the money to Solaire casino.
Philrem owners Michael Bautista and Salud Bautista, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) branch manager Maia Deguito and casino junket operator Kim Wong later gave contradicting accounts to senators.
Unidentified hackers breached the Bangladesh central bank's account with the Federal Reserve in February and wired $81 million to RCBC. The money passed through Philrem before ending up in several casinos.
Senator Bam Aquino asked the Bautista couple, Deguito and Wong if they were willing to open their phone call logs to verify their testimonies. All four agreed.
Wong alleged that he received instructions by phone from Michael Bautista, asking him to pick up money from his house.
"Nagkausap kami sa phone at sabi niya may ganitong pera, at kunin na daw sa bahay," said Wong.
Bautista, however, said he never spoke to Wong on the phone.
Salud Bautista, on the other hand, claimed it was Deguito who instructed her to transfer money to Wong. Deguito denied the allegation.
"Wala akong instructions about cash deliveries, I would like to believe na derecho na sila [Wong and Philrem] nag-uusap. Ang instruction lang sa akin was to credit everything to Philrem," she said.
Of the $81 million, $62 million was converted into pesos and transferred to casinos while the remaining $18 million was delivered to another casino agent, Weikang Xu, whose whereabouts are unknown, according to Salud Bautista.
Bangladeshi authorities said Monday they were investigating 12 Filipinos for alleged involvement in the heist.
The daring caper exposed loopholes in Philippine anti-money laundering and banking laws that make the country a dirty money destination.
Casinos are exempt from scrutiny by the Anti-Money Laundering Council under present laws.
Also during the hearing, Deguito said admitted she lied to RCBC in her reply to a memorandum asking her to explain the questionable deposits.
Degutio said it was Wong, not a certain Jessie Christopher Lagrosas as she had told RCBC, who asked her to transfer the stolen money to the account of businessman William Go.
"During that time that I answered the show cause I wasn't ready to reveal the personalities behind those referred accounts," said.
When asked by Senator Serge Osmeña III if she lied in her response to the RCBC show cause order, Deguito said, "If you will consider that lying, yes, I would acknowledge."
RCBC has filed criminal charges against Deguito and former RCBC Jupiter branch staff Angela Torres for allegedly opening the accounts that received the money under fictitious names.
source: www.abs-cbnnews.com
