UK Probes Company Over Suspected Links To Danske Bank's Money Laundering Scheme - Reports

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st September, 2018) The United Kingdom's National Crime Agency has launched a criminal probe into a UK company over its ties with Denmark's largest Danske Bank implicated in the high-profile money laundering scandal, local media reported on Friday.

On Wednesday, Danske Bank CEO Thomas Borgen resigned. The move came as the bank unveiled the first results of the probe into its branch in Estonia, launched in fall 2017. The investigation estimates that a significant part of some 200 billion Euros ($236 billion) of payments flowing through the branch in 2007-2015 will be recognized as suspicious once the probe is completed.

The company in question is a UK-registered limited liability partnership (LLP), The Financial Times reported, citing informed sources.

According to the media outlet, the NCA confirmed that some companies registered on UK soil had been used as a route for money laundering, but declined to comment further.

"The NCA is aware of the use of UK registered companies in this case and has related ongoing operational activity. The threat posed by the use of UK company structures as a route for money laundering is widely recognised and the NCA is working with partners across government to restrict the ability of criminals to use them in this way," the agency said, as quoted by the media outlet.

The newspaper notes, citing the bank, that UK entities were the second biggest proportion of non-resident customers of the Estonian branch after Russian ones.

The revelation comes after The Wall Street Journal claimed on September 14 that black money from Russia and former Soviet countries had been laundered through the bank's Estonian branch.