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Danske Bank Whistleblower EU testimony
Danske Bank whistleblower Howard Wilkinson testifies during hearing at the EU Parliament Brussels, Belgium November 21, 2018.

The news program 60 Minutes had a piece on the Danske bank scandal and whistleblower Howard Wilkinson on Sunday. He exposed Russian money laundering scheme at the bank’s Estonia branch that 60 Minutes said involves $230 billion.

The piece also features comments from Stephen M. Kohn,Wilkinson’s whistleblower attorney and the chair of the National Whistleblower Center. Both men say that the bank was failing to comply with law designed to prevent money laundering.

From the transcript:

Howard Wilkinson: Being named as a whistleblower in a case involving dirty Russian money. It’s not a good place to be.

Steve Kroft (of 60 Minutes) : You’re still concerned?

 Howard Wilkinson: You’ve gotta be, haven’t you? The very nature of the people who want to launder money probably means that they’re not the sort that you wanna go down the pub and have a pint with.…

Continue Reading 60 Minutes: Danske whistleblower says bank ignored evidence of money laundering

Did local regulators in Estonia and Denmark fail to flag the Danske Bank’s money laundering scheme? Seems EU regulators can’t decide whether it was clearly money laundering or not.

EU bank regulators looked into it and said yes. But their superiors, the European Banking Authority (EBA) board of supervisors, felt the failings did not amount to a breach of EU law. The European Commission, which requested the review, disagrees and plans to pursue the EU investigation into Danske Bank’s scandal.

All this inspired a Bloomberg columnist to write:

Money launderers and financial criminals should — in theory — have good reason to fear the European Union’s army of white-collar cops. The bloc boasts 28 national financial regulators, a euro-zone banking regulator in Frankfurt (the Single Supervisory Mechanism), an EU-wide banking supervisor in London (the European Banking Authority), and a financial markets watchdog in Paris (the European Securities and Markets Authority). It’s a blizzard of three- and four-letter acronyms. 

Whistleblower Howard Wilkinson exposed the Danske bank scandal. He reported suspicious activity at bank’s Estonia branch, where he worked until 2014. Since then, investigators have identified up to $20 billion in fraudulent financial activity. National Whistleblower chair Stephen M. Kohn is Wilkinson’s whistleblower lawyer.
Continue Reading Is it money laundering or not? EU can’t decide on Danske case