In Sweden, charges of fraud and market manipulation have been announced against the former chief executive officer of Swedbank AB, Birgitte Bonnesen, with investigators suspecting a cover-up of information in relation to a money laundering scandal in Estonia, British news portal The Guardian reports.
Bonnesen was asked to leave the bank in 2019 once the scandal came to light. Sweden’s Economic Crime Authority stated that the business leader «repeatedly spread misleading information» that the bank did not have any issues with its anti-money laundering processes in Estonia.
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Thomas Langrot, the leading prosecutor and head of the investigation, noted that she either intentionally or through gross negligence disseminated misleading information about the state of the bank’s anti-money laundering measures. «I have chosen to primarily prosecute for gross fraud, but there is a secondary claim regarding gross market manipulation,» said Langrot. «The misleading information gave a false impression that Swedbank did not have, or had, problems with anti-money laundering processes in the bank’s operations in Estonia.»
An official report by UK-based law firm Clifford Chance, commissioned by the bank, found that the bank had carried out EUR 37 billion of transactions with a high risk of money laundering between 2014 and 2019, The Guardian reports.
Swedbank’s former CEO in Sweden charged over Estonia scandal
