By Butch Fernandez
SENATORS on Wednesday said they were not readily accepting casino junket operator Kim Wong’s claim that he was not a key player in the $81-million money- laundering case involving funds stolen by still unnamed hackers from the Bank of Bangladesh account at the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) in New York.
Asked if Wong, who underwent grilling by senators at the Senate blue-ribbon committee inquiry the other day, is already off the hook, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III told the BusinessMirror the Senate investigating panel still need to “look for collaboration” indicating the senators were not yet absolving Wong from potential liability in the case.
“No one is off the hook,” Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto said.
Sen. Vicente Sotto III, in a text message to the BusinessMirror, said Senate investigators “still have to see the entire picture before clearing anyone.”
Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, investigation chairman, said the committee inquiry may need to call at least two more hearings to counter-check conflicting claims given by witnesses who testified in earlier hearings.
“It is hard to make an assessment right now, kasi kalahati lang ng picture, one-fourth pa lang ng picture ang nakikita natin,” Guingona told reporters. “So, kailangan pa natin ng succeeding hearings.”
Guingona added that the senators also need to verify testimonies given at the hearings, which conflict with statements given by other witnesses.
“Nagbabanggaan ang sinabi. Sinabi ng isang witness nag-deliver ng P600 million sa Solaire kay Weikang Xu,” referring to Wong’s partner in the casino junket operations.
He noted that another witness belied such claim. “Sinabi noong isa pang witness, hindi nangyari iyon.”
“So ngayon kailangan i-weigh natin, timbangin natin ang evidence na lalabas at lalabas pa sa susunod na mga hearings,” Guingona added.
He explained that the panel is not yet ready to wrap up the inquiry “because new issues have come up.”
‘Produce the messenger’
GUINGONA confirmed that the committee is also summoning other witnesses, including other casino junket operators, as well as the messenger of Philippine Remittance Service Corp. (PhilRem), the remittance company, which changed the stolen dollar funds that ended up in local casinos. He recalled PhilRem owner Salud Bautista telling the committee “she delivered the first time, thereafter the one who delivered was the messenger. So sabi namin ngayon ‘produce the messenger.’”
He said the testimony of the messenger would “prove or disprove kung talagang nagkaroon ng delivery ng P600 million and $18 million to a certain Weikan Xu in Solaire.”
‘Branch manager implicated boss to muddle investigation’
THE lawyer of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) president on-leave Lorenzo Tan said on Wednesday that the revelations by casino junket operator Kim Wong in the ongoing Senate investigation of the $81-million money laundering scheme proves that fired RCBC Jupiter Branch Manager Maia Santos Deguito had unduly dragged her boss Tan in this controversy in a “shrewd design” to muddle the issues and “obscure her role as a principal player” in the case.
Tan’s counsel Francis Lim said Wong’s disclosure to Senate investigators that the scam was masterminded by two big-time Chinese casino players, with the assistance of Deguito, proves that the $81-million scam was carried out without Tan’s knowledge or consent.
“It reinforces the belief that this $81-million heist was a plot carried out without the knowledge or consent of Mr. Tan, but rather executed with the indispensable assistance of ousted Jupiter Branch Manager Deguito in cahoots with unscrupulous persons not connected with the bank’s head office.”
During the third hearing by the Senate blue ribbon committee, Wong categorically said that Tan was never involved in the scam, as it was Deguito and the PhilRem that had facilitated the release from the banks of the $81 million believed to have been stolen from the Bangladesh Bank.
Wong had also identified two big-time Chinese casino players—Sua Hua Gao and Ding Zhize—as the ones behind the scam.
“Si Maia lang ang gumagawa ng lahat ng paraan para mailabas ang pera sa bangko,” Wong said in a prepared statement, which he read at the start of his testimony.
As for the two Chinese casino players, Wong said “Silang dalawa ay malaking players at silang dalawa ang gumawa nito.”
When asked by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile to comment on Deguito’s earlier testimony that Tan knew about the money-laundering scheme, Wong replied: “Impossible…sa totoo lang, hindi nangyari ’yon.”
1 comment
There is that discrepancy again in what Philrem says. PHILREM had a role to answer for the movement of the money. Their muddling with the issue making a fool of this investigation.