Money laundering is a multi-bank phenomenon. Danske Bank Estonia has been revealed as the hub of a $234bn money laundering scheme involving Russian and Eastern European customers. But Danske Bank Estonia couldn’t do this by itself. Much of the money was paid in U.S. dollars, and for that, it needed help from other banks. Banks that had access to Fedwire, the Federal Reserve's electronic settlement system. Big banks, in other words.
It appears that four big banks helped Danske Bank Estonia make its dodgy transactions. J.P. Morgan, Bank of America and Deutsche Bank AG all made dollar transfers on behalf of the Estonian branch’s non-resident customers. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Citigroup’s Moscow branch may have been involved in some financial transfers in and out of Danske Bank Estonia. But how much responsibility do these banks bear for these transfers? Could they reasonably have been expected to know – or suspect - that the money was dirty?
Banks that make transactions on behalf of other banks are known as “correspondent banks”. In the past, correspondent banks often had little information about the originator or final recipient of the money they were transmitting. They simply trusted that their customer bank was acting legally and that its customers were above board. Old habits die very hard: in 2016, the correspondent banks involved in the FIFA corruption case, which include Citigroup, HSBC, Wells Fargo and Barclays, all claimed that they could not have known that the transfers were corrupt.
But these days, banks are expected to “know their customers’ customers”. They are supposed to conduct their own checks to make sure that they are not unwittingly being used to launder dirty money.
In the case of Danske Bank Estonia, one of the correspondent banks did suspect something was wrong. In 2013, J.P. Morgan terminated its correspondent banking relationship with Danske Bank Estonia because it was concerned that it was being used as a conduit for dodgy funds. Deutsche Bank, however, blithely continued to make U.S. dollar wire transfers on behalf of the Estonia branch’s non-resident customers after J.P. Morgan's departure. So did Bank of America, which replaced J.P. Morgan.
From 2014 onward, according to Bloomberg, Deutsche Bank started refusing to make transfers that looked particularly dodgy. But the transaction flow did not fall off dramatically until 2015, when Bank of America and Deutsche Bank both terminated their correspondent bank relationships with Danske Bank Estonia - Bank of America in May, and Deutsche Bank in September. A report from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) – Danske Bank’s regulator – says that an employee at one of these banks warned about the Estonian branch’s suspicious customers:
In that connection, a senior employee from the correspondent bank in question assessed that out of ten non-resident customers from the Estonian branch, the correspondent bank would be comfortable only with servicing one given the customers’ characteristics. The employee also warned Danske Bank against Moldovan customers and customers transferring money to Moldova.
According to the Financial Times, this was a Deutsche Bank employee.
But if Deutsche Bank employees were so aware of the suspicious nature of Danske Bank Estonia’s customers and the dodgy nature of some of the money flows, why didn't Deutsche Bank follow J.P. Morgan's example in 2013? Why was it the last to terminate its correspondent bank relationship?
At that time, Deutsche Bank was happily doing a spot of Russian money laundering itself – the “mirror trades” through its Moscow branch for which it last year paid fines totaling $630m to U.S. and U.K. regulators. I suppose it is entirely understandable that a bank that was actively laundering money for its own customers might be little concerned about money laundering by one of its customer banks. But this raises serious concerns about the adequacy of Deutsche Bank's AML processes - concerns that, as we shall see, refuse to go away.
The U.S. regulators are already sniffing round Danske Bank. If the FIFA investigation is anything to go by, their interest will not be limited to the Danish bank. They will also want to know what the correspondent banks thought they were doing. Deutsche Bank was the only correspondent bank to stay with Danske Bank Estonia throughout the period of its known money laundering, and it apparently continued the relationship despite knowing that the Estonian branch’s customers and transactions were suspicious. U.S. regulators might take a dim view of Deutsche’s behavior, especially given the $41m fine it was handed by the Federal Reserve in May 2017 for inadequate AML controls, and the “Problem Bank” designation awarded to its American subsidiary by FDIC.
It seems that BaFIN, the German regulator, thinks so too. Two days after Danske Bank released a report revealing the mammoth scale of its Estonian branch’s money laundering activities, BaFIN reprimanded Deutsche Bank for inadequate AML processes, and imposed an external supervisor to ensure it improved them. The notice on BaFIN’s website is short and to the point:
On 21 September 2018, in order to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, BaFin ordered that Deutsche Bank AG take appropriate internal safeguards and comply with general due diligence obligations. The issued order is based on section 51 (2) sentence 1 of the German Money Laundering Act (Geldwäschegesetz – GwG).
To monitor the implementation of the ordered measures, BaFin has appointed a special representative in accordance with section 45c (1) in conjunction with section 45c (2) no. 6 of the German Banking Act(Kreditwesengesetz – KWG). The special representative is to report on and assess the progress of the implementation.
Ostensibly, this follows on from Deutsche Bank’s admission in August 2018 that its AML processes were patchy to say the least. But the timing is exquisite. Could BaFIN be warning off the U.S. regulators? “This baby is ours. We will deal with it.”
Whether or not BaFIN’s reprimand is directly connected with the money laundering revelations, the fact remains that Deutsche Bank has some serious questions to answer regarding its conduct during the period of its correspondent relationship with Danske Bank Estonia.
And so too do the other banks involved. Although their correspondent relationships were of shorter duration, both J.P. Morgan and Bank of America helped to facilitate the enormous dollar flows in and out of Danske Bank Estonia. And although the exact role of Citigroup’s Moscow branch is as yet unclear, the little we know about it sounds suspiciously like Deutsche Bank’s “mirror trades”.
Investigations into the Estonian money laundering scandal are only just beginning. There is much, much more still to be uncovered. But already, an all-too-familiar familiar name has emerged. Funny, isn’t it, how whenever there is some shady activity going on, Deutsche Bank is never far away?
