Bangladesh asks Senate to renew probe on alleged $81-M laundering

Bangladesh has asked the Senate to resume its inquiry into the alleged laundering of $81-million of the country's money in Philippine banks and casinos.

"I have requested, when I met some of the new senators that 'Can I request you for having another session, another Blue Ribbon Session on our $81 million?'" Gomes said in a media roundtable discussion on the heist.

According to Gomes, he has already met with four or five senators asking for another Senate hearing to look deeper into the matter.

Gomes said that the senators told him, "We will definitely look into this request to have another hearing."

"I've been told that this is possible," Gomes said.

"I am very confident that we should be having another hearing when we know who is the next Senate President and who is the Chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee," he added.

The Senate is set to convene on July 25, when senators are expected to vote on the next Senate and President and the chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

The committee conducted its seventh and last hearing on the $81-million money laundering scheme on May 17 as it had to be cut short due to the change in the Senate composition following the national elections.

Then Senator Teofisto Guingona III chaired the committee under the 16th Congress. He lost his reelection bid.

Then Senator Sergio Osmeña was also one of the active participants in the Senate inquiry into the alleged money laundering but he, too, lost his shot at reelection.

The investigations were focused on transactions of still unknown hackers who were reported to have transferred $81 million from the account of the Bangladesh Bank at the New York Federal Reserve to four RCBC accounts in its Jupiter branch on Feb. 5.

The funds were then withdrawn and transferred to casinos, with the bulk of the finds transferred by remittance firm PhilRem Service Corp. led by its President Salud "Sheba" Bautista. —NB, GMA News