AS EUPHEMISMS FOR suspected money-laundering go, “insufficiently legitimised” takes some beating. That is how Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) described some of Danske Bank’s customers in a report in 2012. The country’s largest bank now faces criminal charges at home and investigations elsewhere.
The dirty-money scandal swirling around Danske is the largest ever uncovered. Over €200bn ($ 227bn) of suspicious transfers originating in ex-Soviet countries may have been rinsed through the bank’s Estonian branch. As the scale of the suspected laundering, dating back a decade, has emerged this year, the bank has lost its boss and seen its share price halved.
In preliminary criminal charges filed on November 28th, Danish prosecutors accuse Danske of failing to report suspicious transactions, not training staff in anti-money-laundering procedures, and having no senior manager responsible for…
