Swedish Broadcaster Alleges Fincen Leaks Tie SEB to $930 Million of Laundered Money -- Update
September 23 2020 - 4:33AM
Dow Jones News
--Swedish broadcaster links SEB to Fincen Leaks
--TV show claims SEB clients could cave laundered $930
million
--SEB says claims aren't news
By Dominic Chopping
STOCKHOLM--Swedish bank Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB might
have been used to launder around 8.2 billion Swedish kronor ($930
million) through its Estonian branch between 2007 and 2016, Swedish
national broadcaster SVT claimed in a report late Tuesday.
TV news show Uppdrag Granskning has made several
money-laundering claims in recent years and in its latest
investigation, it says that around 57 SEB clients, mostly from the
Baltic states, exhibited classic characteristics of suspected money
laundering according to the so-called Fincen leaks.
Among the suspected customers are some the show says are
connected to corrupt Russian politicians and organized crime, it
said.
The claim comes after Uppdrag Granskning viewed U.S. suspicious
activity reports that were filed by banks to the U.S. Financial
Crimes Enforcement Network, known as Fincen, that were recently
leaked. The reports allegedly show that several global banks moved
large sums of illicit funds, despite red flags about the origins of
the money.
In response, SEB said in a statement Wednesday that the
information presented by Uppdrag Granskning doesn't contain any
news, as historical suspicious flows in SEB Estonia have been
previously disclosed by the bank both publicly and in dialogue with
financial supervisory authorities.
"Regarding the transactions that are mentioned in the programme,
of SEK8.2 billion, we note that SEB already during the autumn of
2019 published historical transactional data of 25.8 billion euros
($30 billion, about SEK260 billion) in total of so-called
low-transparency customers in Estonia from 2005 to 2018," the bank
said.
In the past 10 years, SEB said it has filed more than 7,000
suspicious activity reports to financial intelligence units from
its Baltic operations.
"There are no perfect systems, but we continuously work to
improve our abilities to prevent, detect and report suspicious
activity, and that work will never end," it said.
Uppdrag Granskning was first to report last year that billions
of dollars of illicit funds might have passed through Swedbank AB's
Estonian branch, and also claimed that it had found about 194
clients at SEB that it suspected of using the bank to launder money
through Swedish and Baltic accounts.
Both banks were subsequently investigated by the Swedish
Financial Supervisory Authority and found to lack sufficient
anti-money-laundering governance, controls and resources at their
Baltic subsidiaries. The FSA fined Swedbank SEK4 billion and SEB
SEK1 billion.
The FSA last week opened a fresh probe into Swedbank for
suspected breaches of market-abuse regulations.
Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 23, 2020 04:18 ET (08:18 GMT)
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