2016 Bangladesh Bank heist

In February 2016, instructions to steal US$951 million from Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh, were issued via the SWIFT network. Five transactions issued by hackers, worth $101 million and withdrawn from a Bangladesh Bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, succeeded, with $20 million traced to Sri Lanka (since recovered) and $81 million to the Philippines (about $18 million recovered). The Federal Reserve Bank of NY blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to $850 million, at the request of Bangladesh Bank. It was identified later that Dridex malware was used for the attack.

The 2016 cyber-attack on the Bangladesh Central bank was not the first attack of its kind. In this cyber heist, thieves tried to illegally transfer US$951 million to several fictitious bank accounts around the world. In 2013, the Sonali Bank of Bangladesh was also successfully targeted by hackers who were able to cart away US$250,000. In 2015, two other hacking attempts were recorded, a $12 million theft from Banco del Austro in Ecuador in January and an attack on Vietnam's Tien Phong Bank in December that was not successful. In all these cases, the perpetrators are suspected to have been aided by insiders within the targeted banks, who assisted in taking advantage of weaknesses within the SWIFT global payment network.

In 2012, the Philippines loosened restrictions on its gambling industry despite opposition from the Catholic Church. After the country's gambling industry benefited from Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping's campaign against corruption, which drove gamblers further south of Macau, its casinos lobbied against a 2012 amendment by the Philippine Senate of the 2001 Anti-Money Laundering Act that required them to report suspicious transactions. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile had lobbied for the inclusion of casinos in the scope of the law. At that time, big casino firms in the Philippines such as the City of Dreams had not yet been established.

...
Wikipedia