Danske Bank has begun searching for a buyer for its retail banking business in Estonia in the wake of revelations that it was used in a scheme to launder billions of dollars, according to a Danish report.
According to the report published by Danish business paper Borsen, the Estonian bank was used in a scheme to secretly channel billions of dollars out of Russia.
Earlier this week, an international group of investigative journalists published their findings on how banks laundered $20.8 billion of Russian money of allegedy illicit origin, nearly $1.6 billion of this through Estonia.
A document leaked to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) team listed tens of thousands of companies and revealed how Estonian accounts of little-known offshore companies were used to move sums equaling one sixth of the country’s state budget.
The lion’s share, or $1.18 billion, of the total moved through Estonia were transferred via accounts at the Estonian branch of Danske Bank.
VES/ERR