Bank Thieves Think Big, But Maybe Too Big

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Here’s a weird story. Somebody with access to the proper codes managed to steal $100 million from Bangladesh’s account at the Federal Reserve. But that’s not the weird part. Lots of people would steal $100 million if they could. The weird part is trying to figure how they thought they could get away with it:

The breach began on a quiet Friday last month, when a series of payment instructions arrived at the New York Fed seeking the transfer of nearly $1 billion out of the Bangladeshi account….By the time officials at Bangladesh Bank, the country’s central bank, returned to work, five requests moving about $100 million had gone through. Further transfers totaling roughly $850 million were blocked after “the American bank raised a money laundering alert,” a spokesman for Bangladesh Bank has said.

….The wire transfer of $20 million to Sri Lanka went to the account of a newly formed nongovernmental organization, according to officials in Dhaka. The Sri Lankan bank handling the account reported the unusual transaction to the country’s central bank under that country’s anti-money-laundering laws and authorities reversed the transfer.

The Philippines’ Anti-Money Laundering Council is preparing charges against a number of people allegedly involved in the illegal transfer, council Chairman Amando Tetangco, who is also the governor of the Philippines’ central bank, told The Wall Street Journal in a brief interview late Saturday. He refused to identify those who may be charged but said more details would be revealed later.

So the thieves tried to steal $1 billion, but the Fed got suspicious at the prospect of that much money being transferred into private accounts. Big surprise. Still, that was only after $20 million got sent to accounts in Sri Lanka and $80 million to accounts in the Philippines—which was then deposited in a Manila businessman’s bank account and transferred to three large casinos. But these transfers were identified and nobody got their hands on that money either.

In the movies, the thieves would never have been caught because the tech-savvy member of their crew would immediately start routing the money through dozens of proxies and hundreds of accounts. After 30 seconds of laptop argle bargle, the money would be untraceable.

In real life…it turns out wire transfers don’t work that way. So here’s the weird part: why did these guys think this plan would work? Did they seriously think they could transfer $1 billion to private accounts around the world and no one would notice? Or was this heist even more interesting than it sounds, with a whole lot of very high-ranking government officials involved in covering it up? One way or another, this caper was either dumber than it sounds or a lot smarter than it sounds. I can’t wait to find out which.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate