Bangladesh has learned a valuable lesson over the past two months: Do. Not. Trust. The. New. York. Fed.
On a quiet Friday morning in early February, a series of instructions using authenticated SWIFT codes was sent to 33 Liberty allegedly from the Bangladesh central bank requesting the transfer of nearly $1 billion from the country’s FX reserves.
The story of the theft of $100 million from the Bangladesh central bank - by way of the New York Federal Reserve - is getting more fascinating by the day.
Someone at the New York Fed messed up.
On February 5, Bill Dudley was “penetrated” when “hackers” (of supposed Chinese origin) stole $100 million from accounts belonging to the Bangladesh central bank.
As we reported on Tuesday, the money was apparently channeled to the Philippines where it was sold on the black market and funneled to “local casinos” (to quote AFP). After the casino laundering, it was sent back to the same black market FX broker who promptly moved it to “overseas accounts within days.”
Amid growing hostilities, the Philippines has impounded a North Korean cargo ship. The boat was seized following tough new UN sanctions introduced as a response to North Korea’s recent nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Speaking on state run radio on Saturday, the Presidential spokesman Manolo Quezon said that the 6,830-tonne vessel, Jin Teng ,would not be allowed to leave Subic port, north-east of the capital Manila, where it had been docked for three days. He also said the boats crew would be deported.