Danske Bank is a Danish bank with branches in 16 countries, primarily in the Nordic countries. A total of 1,567 Laundromat transfers worth about $1.2 billion were made between June 2011 and May 2014 to accounts at the bank’s branches in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Lithuania, and Estonia.
When contacted by reporters, Danske’s chief legal advisor, Flemming Pristed, admitted that Danske had not “secured enough control with these kinds of customers and have not been good enough at monitoring suspicious transactions in the Estonian branch,” but said that management in that branch had changed, that new anti-money-laundering procedures have been introduced, and that the bank had ended its relationships with the customers except for one, which was judged to be legitimate.
