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Several international newspapers have published the results of a large investigation showing how over the years several large Western banks have allowed suspicious laundered money transactions, which would have enriched both banks and criminals. Institutions such as HSBC, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and Barclays Bank, used by at least one close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, participated in the investigation to circumvent international sanctions imposed on Russia.
The investigation was carried out thanks to the work of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), previously responsible for the huge investigation into the Panama Papers, and close to a hundred newspapers in 88 countries.
It was based on the so-called “FinCEN files”, more than 2,500 documents sent mostly by banks to US authorities between 2000 and 2017. Many of these documents, defined by BBC As “the best kept secrets of the international banking system”, they are the RAS, acronym for Suspicious Activity Reports, that is, reports on suspicious criminal activities detected by banks, but not accompanied by the obligation to act to stop the alleged money laundering. capitals. The investigation was so named because FinCEN is the acronym for the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which is the agency of the United States Department of the Treasury that deals with financial crimes and is responsible for collecting RAS and making them available to the US government agencies and possibly intelligence from other countries.
As he wrote Buzzfeed – the newspaper that more than a year ago received the “FinCEN files” and then shared them with the ICIJ, effectively initiating the investigation – generally the United States government does not intervene in the activities of banks, and when it does it is limited to the imposition of fines, not the impeachment of senior executives. Thus, the investigation showed how, despite the interventions of the authorities, the banks involved have often continued to transfer money from the suspected criminals, without worrying too much about the consequences.
The investigation revealed, among other things: that HSBC, one of the largest banking groups in the world, had transferred millions of dollars even after learning from the US authorities that this money was the result of various scams; that JP Morgan, an American multinational financial services company, would have allowed a company whose owner he did not know to transfer more than one billion dollars through a London account, before discovering that that person could be a mobster on the top ten most wanted by the FBI; that the central bank of the United Arab Emirates would not intervene in the activities of a local company suspected of helping Iran evade international sanctions; that Deutsche Bank, a large German bank based in Frankfurt am Main, would transfer laundered money for terrorists and drug traffickers, and for organized crime; that Standard Chartered, an international financial firm based in London, would transfer money on behalf of Arab Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the Middle East, now based in Jordan, despite the fact that the accounts of several of the clients of the bank were used to finance terrorism.
The investigation also found that the UK was defined by FinCEN’s intelligence division as a “high risk jurisdiction”. In fact, in RAS documents, more than 3,000 British companies have been found to be involved in suspicious activity, a very high number, higher than in any other country in the world. Arkady Rotenberg, a Russian billionaire close to Putin and his childhood friend, is also cited in the documents. Rotenberg allegedly used the Barclays Bank in London to launder money and circumvent the sanctions that the United States and the European Union had imposed on him in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea. In recent years, the Rotenberg companies have built roads, gas pipelines and a power plant thanks to contracts awarded by the Russian government.
L ‘Espresso, which dealt with the Italian part of the investigation, wrote that among the documents there are also Italian bank accounts that mainly concern Arezzo goldsmiths, Ligurian oil companies and Lombard companies of ferrous materials. In addition, the money used in some suspicious money laundering operations linked to some Russian billionaires close to President Putin would have ended up in Italy to buy luxurious villas and hotels.
L ‘Espresso He also spoke of the discovery of a “hidden treasure” in the tax havens of Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, husband of Alma Shalabayeva. In 2013, Shalabayeva was at the center of a widely reported case – her expulsion from Italy – that put the government led by Enrico Letta and then-Interior Minister Angelino Alfano in trouble (here’s the full story). According to “FinCEN files”, Ablyazov would have transferred more than 600 million dollars abroad using undeclared offshore companies. This money would be reinvested in the United States through an American businessman who had worked with Trump on large real estate deals for decades.
According to reconstructions in the newspapers, the dirty money transfers would have involved many sectors, from international sports to the Hollywood film industry. Buzzfeed wrote: “The FinCEN archives show an underlying truth of the modern age: the networks through which dirty money traverses the world have become the vital arteries of the global economy. They allow the existence of such a large and unsupervised shadow financial system that it has become impossible to disengage from the so-called legitimate economy. “
While there have been several major financial investigations in recent years, including the 2016 Panama Papers, the “FinCEN files” are different because they don’t just concern one or two individual companies – they contain relevant information related to many financial institutions. in all the country. world.
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