Kim Wong turns over $4.63 M to AMLC

MANILA, Philippines - Casino junket operator Kim Wong has made good his promise to deliver $4.63 million to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) office at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) head office in Manila.

Lawyer Inocencio Ferrer, Wong’s legal counsel, said in an ambush interview that AMLC executive director Julia Bacay-Abad received the amount surrendered by his client yesterday.

Ferrer said the amount was in hundred dollar bills and in 46 bundles of $1,000 each. The money was counted and validated inside the AMLC office. The procedure was witnessed by Bangladesh Ambassador Maj. Gen. John Gomes and second secretary Probash Lamarong.

Insurance Commission chief Emmanuel Dooc and other BSP officials witnessed the turnover of the amount.

The counting and validation took more than two and a half hours using several counting machines.

According to Dooc, it would be impossible or it would likely take several days to finish counting the amount manually.

The counting started 3:30 p.m. and was finished at 6 p.m.

The surrendered amount was loaded into an armored vehicle of the BSP and transported to the BSP vault.

“Today Mr. Kim Wong kept his promise to the Senate Blue Ribbon committee to return the $4.63 million in his casino to the AMLC for later transmittal to the Bangladesh Central Bank,” Ferrer said.

“We’re here because Mr. Kim Wong has one word. He made good his promise to deliver the money to AMLC,” Ferrer said in Filipino.

“The stature of the Philippines in the world community has been restored today,” he said.

“We thank Senator Teofisto Guingona Jr., chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, for making this turnover possible. We also thank the AMLC and BSP Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. for graciously accommodating our request for the AMLC to be the temporary repository of these funds prior to its return to the people of Bangladesh,” Ferrer added.

Earlier, Wong testified before the Senate Blue Ribbon committee that he had no knowledge or participation in the entry into the country of $81 million stolen from the Bangladesh bank account in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. The amount found its way to RCBC and later to Midas and Solaire casinos.

Changes in RCBC

In a statement, RCBC said its Board of Directors led by chair Helen Yuchengco Dee has taken immediate steps to improve its operational processes.

Dee is also acting as concurrent president as RCBC president and chief executive officer Lorenzo Tan went on leave after being dragged into the money laundering scam by dismissed RCBC Jupiter branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito.

“Down the road, RCBC intends to implement best practice policies and procedures gained from international institutions for rigorous strengthening of compliance with Anti Money Laundering measures. This is meant to comply with all regulations while continuing to protect the interest of customer accounts,” the bank said.

“New threshold amounts have been established for corporate and individual accounts,” the bank said but did not reveal the new threshold.

RCBC said it has also taken action to strengthen the account opening process.

“All in-branch account opening will be signed by two officers, each reporting to different units of the bank. Photos will be taken of walk-in clients who are opening accounts,” RCBC said.

More cases vs Deguito

As this developed, businessman William So Go yesterday filed two counts of falsification of private documents against Deguito and her assistant Angela Ruth Torres for allegedly opening fake peso and dollar accounts in his name without his knowledge.

In a six-page complaint filed before the office of Makati assistant prosecutor Abner Balo II, Go said he had never opened a peso or dollar account at the RCBC Jupiter branch and that all the documents used for opening the accounts were fake.

Go attached copies of a customer information form approved by Deguito and Torres but which bore his forged signature.

He said private investigation firm Truth Verifier found his signature to be forged.

“Based on the findings mentioned above and a high degree of certainty I hereby conclude that the questioned signature allegedly signed by one Mr. William S. Go were not signed by one person and was therefore result of simulated forgery,” Truth Verifier said.

On March 18, Go filed his first complaint against Deguito and Torres – for falsification of commercial documents, specifically their allegedly having faked his signature on a withdrawal slip for P20 million. The withdrawal was from the supposed peso account of Go’s firm Centurytex.

The withdrawal was disputed by another bank officer Romualdo Agarado, who claimed not seeing Go at the Jupiter branch on Feb. 5. Junket operator Wong earlier told the Senate it was he who received the P20 million.

Go told reporters after filing the case that his lawyers were building up cases against the management of RCBC for dragging his name into the money laundering scandal. He did not elaborate.

“This is the greatest crisis in my life, I’m stressed and my business and company is already affected,” he said.

Jail her

 The businessman said his being linked to the scandal by Deguito has adversely affected his businesses.

“I’d like to see Maia Santos Deguito in jail for the embarrassment she has caused me, and the damage she has done to my person and my businesses,” Go told ABS-CBN News Channel before filing the complaint.

Go said Deguito had “confessed” to him in a meeting on Feb. 23 at a restaurant in Serendra, Bonifacio Global City, that she had opened the two accounts in his name without his knowledge and authorization.

The bank officer, he said, admitted that the accounts were intended to hide funds from Bangladesh.

“She already knew then that the money came from Bangladesh,” he said.

He added Deguito offered him P10 million in exchange for his silence on the unauthorized opening of the accounts.

But Go claimed that he angrily and repeatedly told the branch manager to clear his name and that no amount of money could answer for the damage she had done to him.

“She claims that she was a victim of some people she did not name. I was her victim here. I think she is a major player in this scandal,” he said.

Go’s lawyer Ramon Esguerra said his client’s profession of innocence was corroborated by RCBC and by Wong’s Senate testimony last Tuesday.

“RCBC has cleared Mr. Go. They have concluded that the two accounts opened in his name were bogus, that they were opened with fake documents,” he said.

 AMLA draft bill

 As calls for strengthening the law against money laundering mount, the AMLC is preparing to submit to the Senate a draft bill amending the Anti-Money Laundering Act or AMLA – specifically inclusion of casinos and the real property sector in the coverage of the law. AMLC is also pushing for “relaxation” of the bank secrecy law.

“We also want to shorten the reporting of covered of suspicious transactions, from the present 10 days to just five days,” said AMLC member Dooc of the Insurance Commission.

Copies of the draft bill have been handed to AMLC members, including the BSP and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dooc noted that in the RCBC case, the amount was withdrawn in less than 10 days after it was deposited or before reports on its existence could be made.

“We must have a sense of urgency to review relevant laws, and give more teeth to anti-money laundering laws in the Philippines,” he added.

AMLC’s Abad stated in the hearings that lifting certain restrictions in the bank secrecy law – even temporarily – would facilitate the ongoing investigation into the scandal.

 Chinese hand

Sen. Ralph Recto said the controversy has underpinned the need to include casinos in the sectors covered by AMLA. “We should look at the anomaly of having government be the regulator of the gaming industry as well as an investor in it,” Recto said.

He added authorities should look deeper into the involvement of mainland Chinese in the anomaly.

“I think the masterminds are Chinese from the mainland or from China. This has all the makings of a made-in-China problem. The problem did not originate here in the Philippines but outside the country,” he said. – With Perseus Echeminada, Jess Diaz, Mayen Jaymalin, Edu Punay, Christina Mendez, Ted Torres