MANILA – A lawyer of casino junket operator Kim Wong on Wednesday delivered to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) over Php 250 million in cold cash, the last tranche the latter promised to return from what his company received from the stolen USD 81 million.
In a statement, Wong, also known as Kam Sin Wong, said the money was delivered a day before the self-imposed May 5 deadline he told Senators during a Senate hearing on April 5, 2016.
He said the remaining fund was the last that his company, Eastern Hawaii Leisure, Ltd. received from the laundered money that passed through the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation’s RCBC) Jupiter Branch in Makati last February.
The cash is comprised of Php 230 million in Php 1,000 bills and Php 20 million in Php 500 bills. These were placed in nine plastic bags and were delivered by lawyer Kristoffer James Purisima.
To date, Wong has returned to the AMLC cash amounting to about USD 4.63 million and Php 488 million.
Wong is among the respondents in the money laundering cases filed by the AMLC before the Department of Justice.Initial investigations showed that Wong was among the recipients of the USD 81 million stolen from the dollar account of Bangladesh Bank (BB) with the Federal Reserve of New York last February.
AMLC received the money from Wong for safe-keeping.