Hackers steal $81 million from the central bank of Bangladesh.

Casinos, money laundering and wire transfers: Inside a global bank heist

It's a real-life heist that sounds straight out of Hollywood: $101 million in stolen funds, taken from a secure account, disappeared into a murky world of casinos and money laundering.

Investigators are starting to learn just how criminals managed to steal $101 million last month from Bangladesh Bank, a complex operation that required many months of planning.

On February 1, when banks were closed for the weekend in Bangladesh, criminals executed five transfers from the central bank's account at the New York Fed. The requests looked real: They appeared to come from a Bangladesh server, and the thieves supplied the correct bank codes to authenticate the transfers.

Most of the stolen funds ended up in accounts located in the Philippines, while roughly $20 million, which has since been recovered, went to Sri Lanka. The robbers tried to steal $850 million more, but the requests were denied by the New York Fed.

This week in the Philippines, investigators revealed that the missing $81 million had been tracked to Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, a bank in the country. From there, it went to a local money-transfer firm, and then into the country's casinos.

On February 5, Fernandez-Estavillo said, $81 million was deposited into accounts at RCBC. The same day, nearly $500,000 was withdrawn from one of the accounts and loaded into a car that was allegedly later driven away by a branch manager in Manilla. [lol]

Money laundering has long plagued casinos in the Philippines, which largely operate beyond the reach of anti-money laundering authorities. The U.S. Department of State, among others, has identified the country's gaming industry as a nexus for illegal activity and money laundering.

"Transnational drug trafficking organizations based in East Asia use the existing banking system, casinos, and commercial enterprises to transfer drug proceeds from the Philippines to offshore accounts," said an agency report issued this month.

And TPTB are trying to tell us that keeping large amounts of cash isnt a good idea.

How is a bank account any better when your money can just "disappear"?

They said that the money went to the Philippines and then to casinos yet they cant find it...

Its not as though we're talking about crypto-currency. We're talking about international wires which must flow thru bank accounts.

Bangladesh Bank Hack: Missing Cyber Crime Expert Found.

Tanveer Hassan Zoha disappeared last Thursday, two days after he accompanied special police to the offices of the Bangladesh Bank and told reporters that he knew three of the user IDs that hackers deployed to carry out the largest cyber heist in history.

Two days later, he was taken away from a motorized rickshaw by people in plain clothes who blindfolded him and drove off with him in a vehicle, his wife said.

Kamrun Nahar said at the time that police had refused to investigate her husband's disappearance and she appealed to the government for help to free him.

Police delivered him to their Dhaka home, his wife Kamrun Nahar Chowdhury said, although his disappearance was still a mystery.

She said the police told them he was found loitering around Dhaka airport.

WTF?

a reply to: gladtobehere

On February 1, when banks were closed for the weekend in Bangladesh, criminals executed five transfers from the central bank's account at the New York Fed. The requests looked real: They appeared to come from a Bangladesh server, and the thieves supplied the correct bank codes to authenticate the transfers.

Whoops smelling a rat. 'Appeareed to be legit'. That large a transfer would never have been conducted without thorough authentication.

New York "Fed", huh? What bank in particular… please don't say goldman sachs.

Sorry it was the weekend, we were 'closed'. Pffft… big banks never sleep.

And TPTB are trying to tell us that keeping large amounts of cash isnt a good idea. How is a bank account any better when your money can just "disappear"?

If you have a load of cash, and they are stolen from you, there is 0 chance you get them back.

If you have a bank account and they are stolen digitally your money will be returned to you via the bank.

On another note, i like a good heist, this is a well executed heist...kudos to them.

Sounds like a well planned operation from the inside and the outside.

$10 Router, No Firewall Blamed In $80M Bangladesh Bank Hack

Earlier this a year, a spelling mistake in an online bank transfer prevented nearly $1 billion heist at Bangladesh's central bank and the New York Fed. The hackers, however, still had managed to steal about $80 million. Bangladesh government blamed the New York Fed for not spotting the suspicious transactions earlier. As it turns out, they should also be taking some blame, if not all. An anonymous reader writes:

Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world's biggest cyber heists said. The shortcomings made it easier for hackers to break into the Bangladesh Bank system earlier this year and attempt to siphon off nearly $1 billion using the bank's SWIFT credentials, said Mohammad Shah Alam, head of the Forensic Training Institute of the Bangladesh police's criminal investigation department.

Link

Most of us have better gateway security to the internet than this central bank.

India, the place where the US outsources so much of it's IT work. lol.

a reply to: gladtobehere

this kind of money is crazy to even think about if i woke up and had just 100,000 sitting on my floor I could live forever

originally posted by: roadgravel
$10 Router, No Firewall Blamed In $80M Bangladesh Bank Hack

Someone in their IT department will be fired, if not the whole IT shop. Lucky if they don't see charges for being complacent.

My first thought when I read the title was...

"Bangladesh eh? So... About 5 bucks? Canadian?"

a reply to: gladtobehere

S&F to catch a fly

a reply to: gladtobehere

dp

"They" tell you it's bad to keep a large amount of cash on hand because having cash on hand gives you just a hair of power over your fellow citizens who don't- and they can't reliably track every dime you spend and where you spend it.

In the bank, it can disappear in an instant- but in your home it can too with a robbery or fire. But if it's in the bank and goes away, chances are a whole lot of other people lost theirs too.

Take it for what it's worth... but if enough people lose it all at once the whole house of cards comes crashing down overnight. Having some on hand will help you... for a week or two. Right up until the masses figure out that it's worthless paper to begin with.

sounds like the crooks watche the film entrapment same sort of plot but hats of to them love a good robery plot lets hope they get away with it banks rip us of every day with unfair charges