NY Court dismisses RICO claims by Bangaldesh Bank vs Solaire, RCBC and others

March 23, 2020

A New York court dismissed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act claims filed by the Bangladesh Bank against Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., individuals and Philippine firms last March 20.

This was announced Monday by Bloomberry Resorts Corp., the parent company of Solaire Resorts and  Casino which is one of the defendants.

Other defendants are Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, Maia Santos Deguito, Angela Ruth Torres, Lorenzo V. Tan, Raul Victor B. Tan, Ismael S. Reyes, Brigitte R. Capina, Nestor O. Pineda, Romualdo S. Agarrado, Philrem Service Corp., Salud Bautista, Michael Bautista, Centurytex Trading, William So Go, BRHI, Eastern Hawaii Leisure Company, Ltd., Kam Sin Wong, Weikang Xu, Ding Zhize, Gao Shuhua, and John Does 1-25.

''Bloom (Bloomberry) hereby discloses that the RICO claims filed by Bangladesh Bank against RCBC and certain individuals and Philippine companies including Bloomberry Resorts & Hotels Inc. in New York has been ordered dismissed,'' it told the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in a disclosure.

''In an Opinion and Order dated 20 March 2020, the United States District Court, Southern District of New York granted defendants’ joint motion to dismiss for failure to state a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claim or RICO conspiracy claim,'' the disclosure said.

However, ''the court  denied the defendants other joint motions to dismiss based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction and forum non conveniens.''

The civil case  was to collect the amount allegedly lost by Bangladesh Bank from North Korean hackers who broke into Bangladesh Bank’s systems on February 2016, the disclosure said. The amount was estimated at $1 billion.

The hackers sent multiple remittances orders to their account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Some remittance orders were allowed to be transacted through four correspondent banks in New York, and were remitted to alleged fictitious accounts with RCBC, and from where they were transacted, converted and lost, a part of which went through Philippine casinos where they were used to purchase gaming chips and were played in the casino and junket rooms, the disclosure said. DMS