It seems that Danske Bank scandal affected a wide group of Nordic countries. Danish’s bank branches in Latvia and Estonia were at the center of a huge money laundering operation.
After the Swedish Economic Crime Authority and the police searched Swedbank’s headquarters on Wednesday, questions were raised about Sweden’s banking system safety.
According to Sverigesradio the authority is investigating whether Swedbank’s branches in the Baltic countries are also involved in money laundering.
A Swedish Television’s investigative news program reported that there is new information concerning connections between Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman of Donald Trump, and Swedbank. Manafort’s company transferred secretly quite one million dollars.
As a result Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said on Wednesday that his country maybe needs tougher anti-money laundering legislation in the financial system, Reuters reports.
“If we need to strengthen legislation in order to make sure it does not happen in the future, we are prepared to do that,” Löfven told reporters at a joint press briefing with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.
“This is absolutely unacceptable. It destroys confidence in the financial system which is important for society and it risks destroying the reputation of our countries,” Löfven added.
According to Danske Bank it was found that its Estonian branch made suspicious payments between 2007 and 2015 for an amount of some 200 billion euros.
