Money Laundering Reveals Worldwide – NRK Urix – Foreign Documentaries & News

Five of the largest banks in the United States have helped suspicious clients move huge sums of money across borders. They have done so despite having previously been fined for not having done enough in the fight against money laundering and other financial crimes, Aftenposten writes.

The document leak will show that the largest banks in the US:

• Approve money transfers even if you don’t know who the customer is.
• He spent several years discovering that the payments had all the classic signs of money laundering.
• Helps clients involved in corruption and public fraud cases.

More than 400 journalists in 88 countries are behind a global leak that, among other things, reveals how money has been stolen from state coffers, swindled from retirees and generated through the sale of drugs.

The documents include dozens of politicians, their families and aides, including former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has been convicted of financial crimes.

The leaks in question come from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of America (FinCEN), which corresponds to Norwegian Ecocrime. It is the US agency against money laundering, which is part of the US Department of the Treasury.

More than NOK 1 billion were channeled through DNB

Aftenposten reports Sunday night that US banks have announced that NOK 1 billion have been blocked through various DNB accounts. They suspect that the money could be linked to money laundering and other crimes.

DNB cooperates with US banks so that customers can transfer or receive dollars. It is these banks that have notified DNB clients.

– The fact that these types of transactions are reported to the authorities is a sign that the system is working. It is not necessarily a sign that something has gone wrong. Banks should always report suspicious transactions, and this shows that the Aftenposten cases have been solved, says Thomas Midteide, DNB’s executive vice president of communications to NRK.

US banks are said to have notified their authorities about $ 160 million that have passed through the DNB group, partly state-owned. This corresponds to more than NOK 1 billion at the dollar exchange rate for the reported years.

Have you missed payments that should have stopped?

– Payments that violate international or Norwegian sanctions are monitored in real time and stopped. A suspicious payment does not necessarily stop, but it can be reported to Økokrim. It is your job to investigate if something illegal has happened, Midteide responds to NRK.

When this happens, are the routines good enough to capture such transfers?

– We have a low threshold for reporting. Last year, DNB sent more than 1,800 such reports to Økokrim, most of the time with multiple payments and parts to each report. Unfortunately, it is a reality that professional criminals try to abuse our system and that of other banks. Fighting criminals is a career in which the authorities and we at banks must constantly improve, responds Midteide.

Money must be sent to and from DNB clients in Norway and abroad. The Lithuanian branch and the London branch are the ones that have been reported the most times.

Leaked from the inside

Natalie Edwards (42) is the woman behind the leak. She is said to have stolen 24,000 secret Fincen documents and leaked them to a Buzzfeed reporter. It was later revealed by authorities, who got a full picture of her emails, text messages and phones, DN writes.

The information it leaked consisted of a large number of so-called “Suspicious Activity Reports” (SARs), reports that banks and other financial institutions send to authorities about suspicious transactions.

In the United States, it is a crime to disclose information used in government investigations.

The leak will provide a unique insight into cash flows across national borders. Cash flows that should have sounded the alarm in banks.

More than $ 2,000 billion

The International Organization of World Excavation Journalists (ICIJ) is behind the revelations. They publish the leaks in collaboration with the American news company Buzzfeed News.

110 media outlets around the world have long planned to publish leaks on Sunday night.

The leaked documents contain warnings totaling $ 2 billion. This corresponds to more than 14,000 billion Norwegian kroner, at the dollar exchange rate of these years. The reports were delivered from 2008 to 2017, but cover transfers up to 1999, Aftenposten writes.

Banks suspect that this money could be linked to money laundering, corruption, terrorist financing and other economic crimes.

An FBI special agent says in the court documents that there was very sensitive information related to Russia, Iran and the IS terrorist organization in the leaked documents.

Criminals push money around the world

The leaks give insight into how drug dealers, scammers, politicians and oligarchs push money around the world, which they have at the expense of the well-being of ordinary people.

– People may not know much about money laundering and companies in tax havens. But they see the consequences on a daily basis, as this is what makes large-scale crime worthwhile. From smuggling drugs and weapons, to getting a foothold in crisis situations through the pandemic, says Jodi Vittori, an expert on corruption in the United States, according to SVT.

The banks involved themselves have notified the authorities of this in suspicious transaction reports, often abbreviated as MT reports. But after the alert is sent, they continue to help the same customers.

The largest bank in the United States is JPMorgan Chase on Wall Street. On three occasions, in 2011, 2013 and 2014, the bank paid fines and promised authorities to improve its fight against financial crime.

The leak does not say how authorities have handled the alerts. Therefore, there is no basis to say whether they describe crimes or not. MT reports are not the same as reviews, but are considered intelligence information.

He stood behind the revelations of Panama

The International Organization of Excavation Journalists (ICIJ) was also behind the revelation of the 2016 Panama Papers, which was described as the largest document leak in history.

The documents come from the Mossack Fonseca law firm, based in Panama, which specializes in the creation and management of companies in tax havens. The client list included heads of state, billionaires and more than 200 Norwegians.

Among other things, the then Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, had to resign after it emerged that he and his wife secretly owned a tax haven company with significant claims against Icelandic banks that collapsed in the financial crisis. .

In Norway, Aftenposten revealed that DNB had created mailbox companies in the Seychelles for its clients for ten years.