The Danske Bank Money Laundering Case Is Worth $230 Bln — More Than The Whole Crypto Market Cap
NewsBit News Today2 min read
An investigation into Danske Bank examined around 15,000 customers with non-resident characteristics who carried out roughly 9.5 million payments totaling around €200 billion between 2007 and 2015. The bank's chief executive acknowledged that the vast majority of the €200 billion was money-laundered funds flowing illegally out of Russia, the UK, and the British Virgin Islands.
Investigators have uncovered a massive $234 bln money laundering operation through Denmark's Danske Bank, surpassing the entire global crypto market cap of $208 billion
Thomas F. Borgen informed the board of directors of his wish to resign as CEO, taking management responsibility for what occurred at the bank. An independent review by the Danish law firm Bruun & Hjejle found that the Estonian branch failed to disclose the complete situation to the bank's board during Borgen's leadership.
The Estonian unit handled as much as $234 billion between 2007 and 2015, an amount nearly nine times the gross domestic product of Estonia.
In Denmark, the business minister put the potential fine for Danske Bank at as much as $630 million. The European Commission has called Danske Bank's €200 billion scandal "the biggest scandal" in Europe. Denmark's prime minister has described the case as "frankly quite horrible", while officials in the US, Denmark, Estonia and Britain are conducting their own inquiries.
Danske Bank is not the only financial institution implicated in this scandal. The bank's former head of trading in the Baltic, Howard Wilkinson, has testified that other major European and American lenders also processed billions of dollars of dubious transactions through Danske Bank Estonia. Wilkinson stated that three large US banks were the last check before the money entered the global financial system, amid reports that Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, and Bank of America cleared dollar transactions for the branch in Tallinn.
Wilkinson said he began reviewing some of the unit's three most profitable accounts involving British limited liability partnerships in January 2014, but realized by April of that year that the bank did not plan to take any action. He claims that the bank offered him hush money to stop him from speaking out.
Danske Bank said it would donate all profits generated from the suspicious accounts between 2007 and 2015 to a charity dedicated to fighting international financial crime.
