Pledge to Catch Bad Guys by N.Y. Fed, Swift, Bangladesh Bank

Officials from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bangladesh Bank and the payments network Swift vowed Tuesday to catch the thieves who took $81 million out of the Bangladesh central bank's account at the New York Fed.

"The parties provided details on the actions taken and exchanged information about the cyber and physical vulnerabilities illustrated by this event," the New York Fed said after the officials met in Switzerland to discuss lessons learned from the February heist.

And they agreed "to pursue jointly certain common goals: to recover the entire proceeds of the fraud and bring the perpetrators to justice, and protect the global financial system from these types of attacks," the New York Fed said.

The meeting was attended by New York Fed President William Dudley, Bangladesh Bank Gov. Fazle Kabir and representatives from Swift.

Bangladesh Bank had previously threatened to sue the New York Fed over the stolen funds. Though the New York Fed acknowledged the event, it maintained that its systems were not compromised.

The New York Fed blocked 30 transfer requests from the Bangladesh central bank in February, though five were executed. Bangladesh Bank, whose Swift interbank-messaging terminal wasn't working for a time after the cyberheist occurred and was likely disabled by the hackers, said it did not receive inquiries from the Fed about the transfer requests in time to cancel them.