RCBC pins down manager

RIZAL Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito—gatekeeper of the $81-million dirty money that slipped into the country—expected the big inflow and facilitated its speedy withdrawal, apparently with some help from her own branch, according to an internal report submitted by the bank head office to authorities.

In a timeline submitted to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) dated March 14, the RCBC report suggested that Deguito had vouched for the transaction, hastily processed the withdrawal of the money while intimating to other staff members in the branch on Jupiter Street in Makati City that she feared for her life and for her family.

On Feb. 5 or the day the $81 million was wired to the accounts of Jessie Christopher Lagrosas ($30 million), Alfred Vergara ($19.999 million), Enrico Vasquez ($25 million) and Michael Cruz ($6 million), Deguito “facilitated the opening of the account of businessman William S. Go DBA Centurytex Trading at Jupiter BC,” said the report submitted to the AMLC.

This was the same account that Go vehemently denied, instead pointing to Deguito as part of the money laundering conspiracy.

Go claimed that Deguito had admitted to him that she had opened the account herself and offered P10 million if he would go along with the scheme, allegations that Deguito denied.

The $81 million was credited to the four accounts via a straight-through-process after the transactions passed validation criteria.

On the same day, a cash withdrawal from Lagrosas’ account amounting to $22.73 million was made and deposited in the newly opened Go account. “William Go” transferred a total of $14.7 million to the account of remittance firm Philrem.

No signatures

The report noted that all debit documents—Lagrosas’ withdrawal slip, fund transfer forms and managers check applications of “William Go”—had no signatures of clients.

A hold-out order on all four accounts and the Go account was posted at 6:45 p.m. to 7:04 p.m.

“ [A] series of phone calls among district sales head Nestor Pineda, regional sales head Briggite Capina, Jupiter BM (business manager) Maia Deguito and outgoing RBG (retail banking group) head Raul Tan transpired.

“In these conversations, Deguito assured (us) that the clients were long-standing clients of hers, and she expected these funds since last year and the documents were in order,” the report said.

The hold-out order was lifted by the bank past 7 p.m. that Friday, after which the bank paused for a long weekend break. The following Monday (Feb. 8) was a nonworking holiday in observance of the Chinese Lunar New Year.

Message from Bangladesh

By Feb. 9, RCBC received a message from Bangladesh Bank requesting a stop in payment and to freeze the beneficiaries’ accounts for proper investigation. That same day, withdrawals from the four accounts totaling $58.15 million were processed by the Jupiter branch.

Before lunchtime, RCBC Settlements Department sent four e-mails to the Jupiter branch on the recall of the funds.

“However, BM (branch manager) Maia showed him the Feb. 5 e-mail of Ms Capina that [the] accounts were OK to credit. Meanwhile, all the withdrawals and fund transfers were being processed by CSA (customer service assistant) teller Reymart Marbella and approved/overridden by SCRO (senior customer relationship officer) Angela Torres,” the report said.

The assistance given by Marbella and Torres has been seen as an indication that apart from Deguito, the entire branch may have been compromised.

Withdraw rather than die

“In subsequent interviews, both CSH (customer service head) and SCRO said that BM Deguito told them that she would rather process withdrawals ‘kaysa mamatay siya at ang pamilya niya’ (instead of she and her family being killed),” the report said.

Deguito herself facilitated the opening of the four US dollar accounts that received the suspicious remittance, which turned out be part of large funds stolen by computer hackers from the account of Bank of Bangladesh with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

She claims having done due diligence on these customers in line with mandatory know-your-client rule, but except for the William Go account, the addresses have turned out to be fictitious.

AMLC suit

The AMLC itself, in a separate filing with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday, noted that these names may only be aliases.

Around 3:31 p.m. on Feb. 9, RCBC was able to freeze what remained of the balance in the four accounts amounting to around $68,000.

In the following days, RCBC filed a STR or (suspicious transaction report) and tried to view the CCTV footage but found that the video was not working at the branch during the days in question. Deguito was placed on preventive suspension by Feb. 16.

On Feb. 17, RCBC decided not to allow the further opening of new accounts by Philrem or WeRQuick, the remittance firm that converted the money from the consolidated account of William Go into pesos and transferred them to the ultimate beneficiaries.

“Instruction was given by the audit committee not to deal with PhilRem…,” the report said.

By March 1, the suspected accounts were ordered frozen by the AMLC.

Complaint

In the suit against Dequito, AMLC investigators claimed that the branch manager knew that $81 million deposited in her branch had been stolen from the Bangladesh central bank but she still allowed the money to be withdrawn by fictitious account holders.

AMLC investigators made this allegation in a complaint against Deguito and four John Does.

“Not only did respondent Deguito fail to verify the identifies of the respondents within nine months from the time the accounts were opened, she even allowed respondent John Does to withdraw money stolen from Bangladesh Bank,” stated the joint affidavit of AMLC Deputy Director Julia Bacay-Abad and Rafael Echaluse of the council secretariat’s compliance and investigation group.

The John Does were Cruz, Lagrosas, Vergara and Vasquez, who allegedly opened bank accounts at the Jupiter branch on May 15 last year based on identity documents that were later found to be fictitious.

Not included in the complaint was the owner of the RCBC account of one “William So Go” doing business under Centurytex that was opened on Feb. 1 and to whom the withdrawn amounts were deposited into.

The complaint has been assigned for preliminary investigation to a DOJ state prosecutor Gilmarie Fe Pacamara, who has yet to set the first hearing.