The Philippines Senate has started tracing where the $81-million from the accounts of the Bangladesh Bank went after the money slipped through the Philippines financial system, Senator Serge Osmeña said today, reports allexpatnews.com.

‘Osmeña, chair of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies, said the Senate would also trace the four depositors who opened the US dollar bank accounts at the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch on Jupiter Street, Makati City, in May 2015 with an initial deposit of $500.’

‘The accounts, reportedly under the names of Enrico Teodoro Vasquez, Alfred Santos Vergara, Michael Francisco Cruz and Jessie Christopher Lagrosas, were untouched until 4 February 2016, when $81 million were transferred to them.’

‘The alleged fraudulent transfers of the money from the BB account will be the subject of the investigation of the Senate blue ribbon committee on Tuesday (15 March).’

“Number one, we’ll establish the facts.,” said Osmeña.

“Number two, we will trace the four depositors who opened a $500 account each in May 2015 and then turned those into dormant accounts. There’s no activity until suddenly $20 million arrived to each of the accounts. So, it looks planned’, he said.

‘The dollars were reportedly converted into pesos by a remittance company called Philrem and then transmitted them in various tranches to the bank accounts of Chinese national Weikang Xu, Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co. and Bloomberry Hotels Inc.’

Asked if the funds were already remitted elsewhere, Osmeña said: ‘That’s correct, we’re tracing it.’

“We have no idea where the money went as of this time,” the senator added.