NBI to seek more bank records from AMLC

MANILA, Philippines - The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will request the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) for more bank records of personalities implicated in the illegal drug trade in the country.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II in a press conference yesterday again called for the AMLC’s cooperation after criticizing the council for supposed inaction on the NBI’s previous requests.

Aguirre said the new request would cover about five individuals whom he did not name so as not to jeopardize the ongoing probe.

But he hinted that one of them is a public official.

“I talked with NBI and we have information on several bank accounts. We need to have AMLC’s cooperation to validate this information,” he said.

Aguirre revealed earlier this week that the NBI would conduct an investigation on AMLC officials for their inaction on several requests made by the bureau as part of the probe on illegal drug trade.

The DOJ chief said he personally believes “there’s criminal negligence on the part of some people there (in AMLC).”

The DOJ chief revealed that AMLC has been sitting for 22 months on the request of the NBI to look into bank accounts and paper trail of transactions from inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa.

He said the council did not act on the request until after President Duterte issued a warning to its officials during the recent anniversary of the NBI.

Barely two hours after the President’s warning, the AMLC replied to the January 2015 request of NBI and sent several documents to the bureau.

But Aguirre said the documents were “useless.”

He also cited more recent requests of the NBI earlier this year for the probe on the illegal drug trade at the NBP where Sen. Leila de Lima has been implicated.

Aguirre revealed that two executives of AMLC are De Lima’s fraternity brothers.

De Lima is one of the founders of the Lambda Rho Sigma sorority at the San Beda College law school. Their counterpart is the Lambda Rho Beta fraternity.