‘Whoever’s lying has $17M’

Maia Santos-Deguito, Kim Wong and Salud Bautista. PHOTOS BY LYN RILLON

“Whoever is lying has the money.”

So said Sen. Teofisto “TG” Guingona III, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, which is investigating the laundering in the Philippines of $81 million stolen by hackers from the central bank of Bangladesh.

After six hearings on the cyberheist, Guingona said the story flow had just been bouncing among three central parties involved—former Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito (together with her deputy Angela Torres), remittance firm Philrem Service Corp. and Chinese-Filipino casino junket operator Kam Sin Wong (also known as Kim Wong).

As his committee continued to probe the laundering through RCBC’s Jupiter branch in Makati City, Guingona said the money flow could be traced to those who were lying. But he said the truth would catch up with those who were lying.

Asked by the Inquirer how he would assess the pronouncements of the key players, Guingona said it was not prudent to make a conclusion yet.

“But at this point, we can say there are levels of credibility. Most certainly, Kim Wong has a higher level of credibility than Maia Deguito or Philrem. The lowest (in the hierarchy of credibility), being Philrem, which has almost zero credibility,” he said.

Come clean

He urged Philrem, owned by the couple Salud and Michael “Concon” Bautista, to “come clean,” noting that some of the stories from Philrem were “bordering on the ridiculous.

Guingona cited the claim that several Chinese men had picked up money from the Bautistas’ house when Concon had said he could not even speak Chinese.

The blue ribbon committee chair said it was hard to believe that hundreds of millions of pesos would be handed over to anyone using just sign language.

Another inconsistency was the claim that at every delivery or pickup of money, the messenger, Mark Palmares, was there.

But at the sixth hearing, the messenger said he was at the delivery of money only at Solaire casino and at the Bautistas’ home.

“Those are indicative of hiding something—this extreme evasiveness,” Guingona said.

$17M unaccounted

Wong said $17 million from the Bangladesh central bank was still unaccounted for, adding this was probably still with Philrem, an allegation that the firm denied.

So far, Kim Wong has turned over to the Anti-Money Laundering Council for safekeeping $4.63 million and P238.28 million in cash. Wong, who had received part of the $81 million, is expected to turn over another P250 million.

Guingona said the missing $17 million was one nagging question that must be resolved in the subsequent hearings.

Wong has identified two Chinese nationals—junket agent Shuhua Gao and Macau businessman Ding Zhize—as the ones who brought the $81 million to the country and arranged with Deguito the opening of bank accounts at RCBC Jupiter.

Bank accounts were opened in the names of Michael Francisco Cruz, Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, Alfred Santos Vergara, Enrico Teodoro Vasquez on May 12, 2015, each funded only with the minimum $500.

They were untouched until Feb. 5 when $81 million was wired to the bank accounts, which were later established to have used fictitious addresses and identification cards.

Lie acknowledged

Deguito, for her part, admitted to Sen. Serge Osmeña at the hearing on Tuesday that she had lied to the RCBC head office by reporting that it was Lagrosas who called her on Feb. 5 inquiring about the transfer from Bangladesh.

She also said that he had sent presigned forms for the withdrawal and transfer of funds, with instructions as to the amounts to be withdrawn and the accounts where the funds would be deposited.

The funds were deposited in the account of Centurytex Trading of businessman William Go, who allegedly told her to open a US dollar account on the same day. Go has denied owning both the peso and US dollar accounts at the RCBC branch on Jupiter Street.

Deguito said at the hearing on April 19 that she was no longer sure about Go’s involvement. She also admitted to lying about pointing to Lagrosas instead of naming Wong, as she was not ready to name Wong at the time.

The branch manager added that the first and last time she met the “account owners” was when they were introduced to her at Midas Hotel. In her show-case affidavit, she had said she met them all in Solaire.

Guingona said Deguito’s admission of lying during the sixth hearing was a “breakthrough.”