RCBC branch manager stopped from leaving PH

The Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch manager who was the gatekeeper of the suspicious bank accounts involved in the $81-million cross-border remittance being investigated by antimoney laundering has been stopped by immigration authorities in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).

Airport sources said Maia Santos-Deguito, manager of the RCBC branch on Jupiter St., was offloaded at 3: 30 p.m. from the Philippine Airlines plane flight PR 432 that was bound for Narita, Japan supposedly at 2:50 p.m.

READ: William Go: RCBC branch manager forged my signature in $81-M money laundering

Santos-Deguito is being investigated by the RCBC head office for alleged violations of the bank’s money-laundering and terrorist financing-prevention program manual, and for falsification of deposit account opening and other offenses listed by RCBC’s human resources group in a show-cause memorandum dated March 2.

READ: RCBC branch head: Rogue or scapegoat

The five out of six individuals who are being probed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council in connection with an $81-million remittance that the Bangladesh Bank reported as fraudulent and stolen from its account in the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York kept deposit accounts at the RCBC branch on Jupiter St.

READ: PH blocks $870M stolen from Bangladesh

The opening of four of these five accounts—those held by Michael Francisco Cruz, Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, Enrico Teodoro Vasquez and Alfred Santos Vergara—was done in May 2015 and was facilitated by Santos-Deguito.

These accounts had no activity until the $81 million was wired by the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York.