The bank secretly transferred money from "high-risk" clients in Russia to the US financial system.

Photo: Reuters

In the tenth month of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Denmark's largest bank, Danske Bank, pleaded guilty to fraud against banks in the United States of America.

According to a statement on the website of the US Department of Justice, the bank pleaded guilty to implementing a multi-billion dollar scheme to access the US financial system.

According to court documents, Danske Bank defrauded U.S. banks regarding Danske Bank Estonia’s customers and anti-money laundering controls to facilitate access to the U.S. financial system for Danske Bank Estonia’s high-risk customers, who resided outside of Estonia – including in Russia. The Justice Department will credit nearly $850 million in payments that Danske Bank makes to resolve related parallel investigations by other domestic and foreign authorities.

Between 2008 and 2016, Danske Bank offered banking services through its branch in Estonia, Danske Bank Estonia. Danske Bank Estonia had a lucrative business line serving non-resident customers known as the NRP. Danske Bank Estonia attracted NRP customers by ensuring that they could transfer large amounts of money through Danske Bank Estonia with little, if any, oversight. Danske Bank Estonia employees conspired with NRP customers to shield the true nature of their transactions, including by using shell companies that obscured actual ownership of the funds. Access to the U.S. financial system via the U.S. banks was critical to Danske Bank and its NRP customers, who relied on access to U.S. banks to process U.S. dollar transactions. Danske Bank Estonia processed $160 billion through U.S. banks on behalf of the NRP.

To resolve the investigation, Danske Bank pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Under the terms of the plea agreement, the company has agreed to criminal forfeiture of $2.059 billion. Danske Bank will also enter into separate criminal or civil resolutions with domestic and foreign authorities, and the Department will credit approximately $850 million in payments the bank makes to the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Danish authorities.

Scandal involving Danske Bank:

In March 2017, Danske Bank confirmed the involvement of its subsidiary bank in Estonia in the "Moldovan scheme" to withdraw funds from Russia.

Then the main beneficiaries of the withdrawal of more than 700 billion rubles. from Russia under the "Moldovan scheme" were Russian Railways contractor Alexey Krapivin, owner of the Lanit group Georgy Gens and co-owner of the Marvel IT holding Sergey Girdin.

It was also reported that FSB officers were involved in organizing the scheme.

As foreign banks that appeared in the scheme, Danske Bank, HSBC, UBS and Bank of China were indicated in particular.