American Samoa's member of the United States Congress, Faleomavaega Eni, says the federal government is working to have a $1.3 million US dollar illegal transfer to a bank in Vietnam returned soon to the territorial government.
The illegal transfer surfaced more than two years ago when an account belonging to the American Samoa Government was hacked and the money was transferred to a bank in Vietnam, where the government there has frozen the funds following requests from the territory and the FBI.
In a letter last week to Governor Lolo Matalasi Moliga, Faleomavaega says that the US Justice Department is now working directly with the Vietnamese government to resolve the matter and the money should be transferred back soon.