Former Head of Financial Crime Regulator and Director of Danske Bank Charged with Money Laundering Failures

By Christine Duhaime | May 10th, 2019

According to the Danish press, Henrik Ramlau-Hansen, the former head of the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, Denmark’s bank regulator, who was a director of Danske Bank, has been criminally charged and his house raided in connection with a €200 billion money laundering scandal involving Danske Bank. The charges are pursuant to Denmark’s anti-money laundering legislation and are related to his alleged failure to have performed or supervised, anti-money laundering law properly over the bank’s activities, allowing hundreds of billions of dollars of proceeds of crime to flow through the Danske Bank from 2011 to 2015 that was tied to politically exposed persons from, among others jurisdictions, Russia.

Thomas Borgen, the CEO of Danske Bank was criminally charged earlier this week, and additional executives have been charged but their names have not been released.

The €200 billion money laundering and PEP scandal cost the Danske Bank more than half of its capitalization and sparked a criminal investigation in the US, Estonia, France and Denmark.

Mr. Ramlau-Hansen was head of the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority from 2016 until 2018.

At an ACAMS national conference a few years ago, a US government official did say in reference to the global ecosystem, that regulators want banker heads on a stick. This may be that occasion.

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