Dhaka: Casino junket operator Kim Wong said on Tuesday that he would return a third tranche, amounting to USD 9.73 million, of money stolen from Bangladesh Bank’s reserve account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York within ‘15 to 30 days’.

Through his lawyers, Kim on Monday already returned USD 830,000, but the turnover hit a slight snag when authorities found two fake Philippine Peso 500 bills (USD 10.81) amid the mountains of cash.

Last week, Wong turned over USD 4.63 million to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) office in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) complex in Manila.

About the recovery of the hacked money, Bangladesh Bank deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury told reporters that the central bank has been going all out to get the money back. He said the central bank is getting full support from Manila authorities, but expressed doubt about the full recovery of the money taken away by the cyber criminals.

Meanwhile, AMLC Executive Director Julia Bacay-Abad said two counterfeit bills were found during the counting of P38.28 million that started at 11:00am and ended at 1:00pm.

Abad and Wong’s lawyer, Victor Fernandez, said lawyer Inocencio Ferrer Jr. had to shell out P1,000 to replace the fake banknotes.

The P38.28 million was in denominations of P500 and P1,000, placed in a trolley bag, Abad said. The BSP cash department assisted in counting the money using machines that can detect fake banknotes.

According to a report of Manila-based news portal the Inquirer, the turnover was witnessed by officials of AMLC, Bangladesh Bank (BB) and Bangladesh’s embassy in the Philippines. AMLC issued an acknowledgment receipt for the amount to be turned over to Bangladesh Bank.

The money will be stored at the BSP’s vault for safekeeping, while the AMLC is making arrangements with the Bangladeshi government for its return, Abad said.

The P38.28 million ‘represented the funds abandoned by Gao Shuhua in Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co. Ltd. and/or Midas Casino,’ Fernandez said.

Wong is a stockholder of Eastern Hawaii.

Fernandez said it would take 15 to 30 days to raise some more funds before Wong could return another P450 million that was earlier borrowed by Gao. ‘According to Wong, he was even willing to sell properties to be able to raise the necessary money,’ he said.

The lawyer said Wong would attend today’s (Tuesday) Senate hearing ‘because he wants to finish this thing as soon as possible.’

Abad reiterated that ‘as far as AMLC is concerned, a bigger amount of money should be recovered from their groups’ as ‘there’s still much to be returned.’

‘The amount of $81 million has been stolen from Bangladesh Bank, was remitted or received by these groups. So, we have to recover the same amount of money,’ she said.

She confirmed reports that AMLC had asked Wong’s camp to directly turn over the money to Bangladesh Bank ‘because this money belongs to the Bangladesh government.’

‘AMLC and BSP’s participation is to facilitate the return of the money to the Bangladesh government. We are just safekeeping the money while the Bangladesh government is making the necessary arrangements to transfer the money to their country,’ she said.

Wong’s counsels maintained that, in accordance with the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s mandate, the funds ‘abandoned’ by Gao in Eastern Hawaii should be turned over to the AMLC/BSP for ‘safekeeping.’

‘We have no mandate to turn it over to the Bangladesh government. Our client, Mr. Kim Wong, has no business speaking directly with the Bangladeshis. Our clear understanding is that after turning over the funds to AMLC ‘for safekeeping’, its disposition should be subject to a government-to-government agreement,’ Fernandez said.