A trial court in the Philippines has ordered the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to return to the Bangladesh central bank a recovered portion of the $81 million that was stolen from the bank earlier this year. The court declared Bangladesh as the rightful owner of the funds, totaling $15 million. 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. It has been found that a casino junket operator had 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 Bank filed a petition staking its claim to the money before it could be turned over to them.
