- Businessman William Go revealed at the Senate hearing that Deguito confessed to him during their meeting last month
- Go said the bank manager admitted opening an account in his name and apologized for what she did
- He also confirmed being offered P10-M in exchange for his silence
- RCBC also pinned down Deguito in the report submitted to AMLC
MANILA, Philippines – Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) bank manager Maia Santos Deguito allegedly confessed “she did something wrong” to William Go; this was revealed by the Filipino-Chinese businessman at the Senate hearing on Tuesday, March 15.
Go, one of the six people whose accounts were used in the alleged $ 81-million money laundering scheme, told the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing that Santos told him she opened an account in his name without his knowledge.
Go recalled he agreed to meet Deguito at Mary Grace restaurant in Serendra at Bonifacio Global City (BGC) last February 22 through a certain East West bank manager Allan Peñalosa who asked him if he wanted to earn P200-M.
Deguito used to handle Go’s Centurytex accounts when she was still with East-West Bank before she was pirated by RCBC.
“Upon seating, she told me, ‘Sir, I’m sorry. I did something wrong to you. I opened an account for you at RCBC,’” Inquirer’s Leila B. Salaverria quoted Go as saying at the Senate hearing.
No instructions
Go said he was surprised and asked Deguito why she did that; knowing that he neither gave her any instructions for such things nor did he have any transaction with the RBCB bank manager.
“I was shocked,” Go said; adding that Deguito continued to apologize to him and revealed that they are now facing a problem because a huge amount had been deposited in the account.
Go then demanded Deguito to keep him out of it and clear his name despite the bank manager trying to explain to him how the scheme works and how the businessman could earn money from it.
Go further claimed it was during the course of their conversation that Deguito offered him P10-M in exchange for his cooperation, but he allegedly declined.
“With the trouble you caused me, whatever damage that is, it’s not worth being paid for it, even if it would be hundreds of millions,” Go supposedly told Deguito.
“I told her, I don’t care about that, my demand is you clear my name,” he added.
RCBC pins down Deguito
Meanwhile, in a report to Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) dated March 14, RCBC insinuated that Deguito facilitated the ‘hasty’ withdrawal of the $ 81-M from the four accounts on the Jupiter-Makati branch.
The report said that on February 5, a total of $ 81-M were wired to the accounts of Jessie Christopher Lagrosas ($ 30 million), Alfred Vergara ($ 19.999 million), Enrico Vasquez ($ 25 million) and Michael Cruz ($ 6 million). On the same day, Deguito facilitated the opening of William Go’s account.
On the same day, a total of $ 22.73 million was withdrawn from Lagrosa’s account and deposited into Go’s account, out of which $ 14.7-M was transferred to the account of remittance firm Philrem.
All the documents in the transaction involving Lagrosa’s and Go’s account does not bear the signature of the clients.
Hold-out order
A phone conversation then transpired between Deguito, district sales head Nestor Pineda, regional sales head Briggite Capina, and outgoing RBG (retail banking group) head Raul Tan after a hold-out order was issued around 7:00 pm of the same day.
“In these conversations, Deguito assured (us) that the clients were long-standing clients of hers, and she expected these funds since last year and the documents were in order,” said the report.
The hold-out order was then lifted a little past 7 pm on that day which was Friday.
When banking office resumes the following week, RCBC said they then received a message from the Bangladeshi central bank requesting to stop the payments for the accounts in question and demanded an investigation.
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