UK Investigates Company Linked to Danske Bank Scandal

News

The UK’s National Crime Agency has opened a criminal investigation into a UK-registered company suspected of having been involved in the Danske Bank multi-billion money-laundering scandal, The Financial Times reported.

September 21st, 2018
Banking Money Laundering

  

The agency did not reveal the name of the company but the paper wrote it was a UK-registered limited liability partnership or LLP.

The scandal relates to non-resident transactions worth 200 billion euros (US$236 billion) that over years had passed through the bank’s Estonian branch, many of which the bank itself later claimed were suspicious.

Denmark’s biggest lender also faces a new Danish investigation after the bank’s own investigation prompted widespread criticism and propelled the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) to revisit the case which it had concluded this May.

Thomas F. Borgen, CEO of Danske Bank, resigned on Wednesday, saying that although the investigation did not reveal that he did something wrong, he still feels responsible.

However, Borgen had rejected calls by other managers and by JPMorgan to pay attention and scale back the business at the heart of one of Europe’s largest money-laundering scandals.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found that the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, which was named in the Panama Papers investigations, had closed several accounts that had been used by a member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s family and Russia’s intelligence service to launder huge amounts of money.