Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile made a motion to cite in contempt Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) Jupiter Branch Manager Maia Santos Deguito for refusing to answer his queries on the $81 Million money laundering incident at the Senate inquiry, Thursday afternoon.(MNS photo)
MANILA (Mabuhay) – Filipino-Chinese businessman William So Go reportedly wanted a 10-percent kickback from the $81 million laundered from the account of the Bangladesh Bank with the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York to maintain his silence about the transactions.
“Deguito is saying otherwise, that Go was asking her for 10 percent of $81 million para pumayag siya or para maayos problema,” Senator Teofisto Guingona III said in an interview in Manila on Monday.
Guingona was referring to claims made by Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) Jupiter branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito during the executive session with the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on March 17.
Go is the former owner of S&R Membership Shopping (formerly PriceSmart Membership Shopping) and CUL Warehouse Shopping.
He is now the sole proprietor of brokerage firm Centurytex Trading which services the importation of international garment labels such as Guess, Vans, Mango, Terranova, and US-based ice cream parlor chain Cold Stone Creamery.
Sought for comment, Go’s legal counsel belied the claims.
“This is not true. She offered P10 million,” Go’s counsel Atty. Ramon S. Esguerra said in a text message sent to GMA News Online on Monday.
“Mr. Go declined as according to him, he is not stupid to legitimize an otherwise illegal account. His demand was for Mrs. Deguito to clear his name from the anomaly,” Esguerra added.
In earlier interviews, as well as in his affidavit submitted to the NBI, Go claimed that he was invited by a “friend” on February 22 to meet with Deguito on February 23.
“At the said meeting, Ms. Santos disclosed to me that she opened fictitious dollar and peso bank accounts for Centurytex at RCBC Jupiter… Ms. Santos further admitted to me that she opened Centurytex’s RCBC accounts to facilitate the deposit of a substantial amount of US Dollar remittance allegedly coming from Bangladesh, which she later converted to peso,” the affidavit read.
This was when Go said he was offered P10 million by Deguito for him to keep mum regarding the transactions.
“We’ll have to look at all angles here,” Guingona said, noting that the next Senate hearing slated on March 29 will be somehow focused on the transactions regarding the account named under Go.
“Tapusin na natin ‘yang yugto na ‘yan,” he added, referring to Go.
The RCBC account—earlier denied by Go to be his—was found to have been the storing grounds of the consolidated laundered funds before it was then transferred to the three casinos: Solaire Resort and Casino, City of Dreams Manila, and Midas Hotel and Casino.
During the hearing on Thursday, RCBC Legal and Regulatory Affairs Head Maria Cecilia Fernandez-Estavillo said the supposed account of Go was found to be fictitious.
“Under independent verification, the addresses of William Go are false in those accounts… The signatures do not seem to match the signatures in the other accounts in Trinoma,” she told the blue ribbon committee.
For his part, Go on Friday filed criminal complaints against Deguito and RCBC senior customer relationship officer Angela Torres for dragging him into the laundering scheme.
The complaints filed before the Makati Prosecutor’s Office accuse Deguito and Torres of committing falsification of commercial documents, which is punishable under Article 172 of the Revised Penal Code. (MNS)