The Chief of Denmark Based Bank Quits Over £178bn Money Laundering

The chief executive of Danske Bank (the biggest bank in Denmark) resigned following an internal investigation which revealed that majority of £178bn moving through the bank’s Estonian branch was down to cash money-laundered illegally from Russia, the British Virgin Islands and the UK.

The former boss of Danske Bank, Thomas Borgen has said that the bank has failed to live up to the expectations in preventing possible money laundering of cash in Estonia.

The Danish bank involved a law firm to carry out an inquiry after it was being said that it is not possible to determine the amount of money that was laundered through the bank’s Estonian branch from 2007 to 2015.

The independent report issued by the law firm has suggested that more than 7,500 out of the 15,000 customers of the bank in Estonia were found to be suspicious, and in addition to this the law firm has also suggested that some of the staff at the bank’s Estonian branch may have been involved in assisting the customers in evading the bank’s security checks.

Finantsinspektsioon, the regulator for the financial services sector in Estonia, said that it will consider all the possible actions to address this issue, together with Danish financial supervision authority which is the prime body that supervises the bank back in Denmark.

The chairman of Finantsinspektsioon, Kilvar Kessler, has said that the Danske Bank’s investigation report confirms the findings of the supervisory proceedings carried out by Finantsinspektsioon at the bank’s Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015.

The report highlights serious loopholes and shortcomings with regards to the organization’s risk assessment and risk control system.

Finantsinspektsioon in 2014 carried a number of on-site inspections and as a result ordered the bank to address the shortcomings of its risk control system. As a direct consequence of the order by Finantsinspektsioon the Danske Bank exited the market that served non-resident customers

It is also being reported that the National Crime Agency (NCA) has started investigating a UK based LLP which the agency expects to be involved in the whole money-laundering fiasco.