A Danish Bank’s Evolution Into a Funnel for Suspicious Cash
Danske, the country’s biggest lender, has revealed that it ignored red flags of potential money laundering.
Danske Bank CEO Thomas Borgen and Chairman Ole Andersen arrive at a Sept. 19 press conference in Copenhagen to address the bank’s money laundering scandal.
Photographer: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/via ReutersDanske Bank A/S, founded in Copenhagen in the 1870s, has rarely made waves outside Denmark. That changed when the bank revealed the scale of what may prove to be one of Europe’s biggest and most brazen cases of money laundering.
Some €200 billion ($235 billion) flowed through its tiny Estonian unit over a nine-year period, a large portion of the funds suspicious, the company said. Concerns about Danske had been brewing for more than a year, but an internal report published on Sept. 19 showed that the bank allowed the potentially illicit activity, and profited from it, even after regulators and a whistleblower raised red flags. “The scandal is huge,” says Martin Lidegaard, Denmark’s former foreign minister and a member of the opposition Social Liberal Party. “One of the worst consequences is the loss of faith in the Danish financial industry, and in Denmark.”