“At our end, we did not find any debit confirmation in our system against those payment orders,” Huda said.
Sensing a much bigger problem than a computer glitch, Bangladesh Bank contacted SWIFT to help them analyze the transactions. It also e-mailed and faxed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where it kept an account, with a stop order for all unauthorized payments until further notice, Huda told police.
Over Saturday and Sunday, Bangladesh Bank failed to reach officials in New York by phone. But by that time it was also a weekend in the U.S., and nobody was available.
By Monday, Feb. 8, the central bank’s connection to the SWIFT system was back up and running. Bank officials then discovered that four unauthorized SWIFT messages were sent indicating that $101 million was transferred to the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
Frantic Messages
Bangladesh Bank then frantically sent stop payment orders via the SWIFT system to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Pan Asian Banking Corp. in Sri Lanka.
Huda said in the complaint that $81 million was sent to Rizal Bank via four messages and $20 million was sent to Pan Asia Banking via one message -- all from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Another $850 million in transactions were halted.
On request from Bangladesh Bank, Pan Asia Banking canceled the payment of $20 million to its beneficiary and routed the funds back to Bangladesh’s account with the Fed in New York. But the $81 million that entered the Philippine banking system was credited to beneficiary accounts with Rizal Bank and eventually withdrawn.
The $20 million transfer to Pan Asia Banking raised alarms because of its size and a typo in the beneficiary’s name, according to Nalaka Wijayawardana, deputy general manager of marketing at the bank. Pan Asia Banking then remitted the funds back to Bangladesh Bank’s account in New York via Deutsche Bank around Feb. 17, he said.
Philippine Suspect