MANILA — The Department of Justice announced it has secured the conviction of a compliance officer of Philrem Service Corporation for failure to maintain required records in connection with the 2016 $81-million Bangladesh central bank cyber heist.

“This conviction is a first in Philippine law where a compliance officer violated the mandatory records keeping of a covered institution,” the DOJ said in a statement.

In a report, it said that the case stemmed from provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2001, which requires covered institutions to keep client records for at least five years and report covered or suspicious transactions to the Anti-Money Laundering Council.

“The law does not provide for any exception relieving covered institutions of their obligation to maintain and store records on the ground that such information may be available with other banks or financial institutions,” the DOJ said.

“Philrem’s failure to maintain customer identification records constitutes a clear violation of law,” it added.

According to the DOJ, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas received a request in 2016 from the Governor of Bangladesh to investigate the unauthorized transfer of $81 million to the Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC).

Investigators found that $80 million was deposited into the RCBC account of William So Go, who was doing business under Centurytex Trading.

The DOJ said Go later transferred funds to Philrem’s RCBC account, which then routed money to Bloomberry Resorts and Hotels Inc., Eastern Hawaii Leisure Company, and Wei Kang Xu.

The DOJ identified the convicted individual as a compliance officer of Philrem, a BSP-registered remittance agent covered by AMLA requirements.

“As a compliance officer, Pelejo failed to keep records as mandated by law,” the DOJ said.