While the Federal Reserve Bank of New York initially rejected 35 fraudulent funds transfer requests related to a Bangladesh Bank
account, it then approved four of the fraudulent requests, resulting in the wipeout of $81 million, according to Reuters.
The New York Fed's decision to approve a handful of resubmitted requests raises questions about whether the financial
institution missed any warning signs over the transfers.
"Hours before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York approved four fraudulent requests to send $81 million from a Bangladesh Bank
account to cyber thieves, the Fed branch blocked those same requests because they lacked information required to transfer money,
according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter," the report said.
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According to the report, the Fed "initially rejected 35 requests to transfer funds to various overseas accounts," because "they
lacked proper formatting for the SWIFT messaging system, the network banks use for international financial transfers."
"Despite the technical compliance, the New York Fed rejected 30 of the requests a second time. But the Fed did approve five
requests — for a total of $101 million. Later, one of those five transfers — a $20 million request — was reversed because of a
misspelling," the report highlighted.
According to the report, the Bangladesh Bank and SWIFT declined to comment, while "the New York Fed has said there were no
problems with its procedures for approving SWIFT fund transfers, and declined to comment on whether it missed any warning
signs."
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