Billions of Euros Possibly Laundered Through Nordea, DNB Baltic Offices in 2010s, Reports Say

HELSINKI (Sputnik) - Billions of euros were illegally moved through the Baltic branches of Danish bank Nordea and Norwegian bank DNB in the 2010s, Finnish broadcaster Yle reported on Monday, citing leaked documents.

Yle cited banks' leaked internal reports dated 2019 as saying that some 3.9 billion euros ($4 billion) had been moved through banks' branches in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from suspicious sources. Some operations were made through Estonian-based bank Luminor Bank, which Nordea and DNB jointly established in 2017.

According to the reports, among Nordea's customers were several Estonian companies owned by a Russian citizen wanted by Interpol. Moreover, Yle claimed that 947 million euros had been transferred through Nordea and Luminor Bank by companies allegedly owned by a former Russian military officer.

Nordea commented later on Monday, saying that no evidence of weaknesses in the anti-money laundering processes was found then.

"Media outlets are reporting on historical matters in Luminor Bank, which Nordea co-owned with DNB and later sold. Nordea does not accept being used as a platform for financial crime – not now and not then. Reviews performed when Nordea left the Baltic market found no evidence of systemic weaknesses in the anti-money laundering processes," the statement read.

However, the bank recognised that "banks and societies at large underestimated the complexity of combating financial crime" at the time.

Nordea and Luminor Bank had already gotten in the crosshairs of investigations and media several times. In November 2018, Luminor Bank launched an internal investigation into alleged money laundering. In March 2019, Yle also cited leaked documents as saying that Nordea handled 700 million euros in suspicious transactions between 2005 and 2017. In 2021, the Bank of Lithuania imposed a €350,000 fine on Luminor Bank after investigating payment incidents that occurred in July-August 2020.