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MONEY LAUNDERING

KTH students charged for money laundering

Two students enrolled at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) were among several Stockholm residents charged on Thursday for their role in a massive swindling operation involving 100 million kronor ($16 million) in laundered money.

The pair from the prestigious university are thought to be the ringleaders of a gang involved in a huge money laundering operation, Sveriges Television (SVT) reports.

Ten people have been arrested so far following a long investigation by fraud investigators into reports of false accounting, money laundering and weapons offences.

The main leader behind the gang is said to be a 35-year-old student at KTH, who, together with his 25-year-old, is said to have developed a sophisticated way of laundering more than 100 million kronor using up to one hundred different companies.

Most of the companies involved are in the construction, sheet metal, and roof sweeping business.

By using false invoices, those suspected of involvement in the scheme withdrew sums of more than 100,000 kronor at a time allegedly using a foreign exchange office in central Stockholm.

According to investigators, the two ringleaders netted a profit of around 15 million kronor in the operation, SVT reports.

Police believe that the gang used a premises in the Djurgården neighbourhood of Stockholm as their secret base. A pistol and an assault rifle with ammunition were found at the scene.

When arrested the students admitted to knowledge of the weapons in a hideout that prosecutors believe could also have been used by other criminals to stash weapons.

The two KTH students will stand trial in the Stockholm District Court in two weeks time.

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MONEY LAUNDERING

US files lawsuit against scandal-hit Danske Bank

The United States and a US pension fund have filed a claim in a Danish court seeking more than $1.6 million for lost investments following a money laundering scandal that engulfed Danske Bank, their lawyer confirmed.

US files lawsuit against scandal-hit Danske Bank
Photo: Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

“A lawsuit was filed in September against Danske Bank and its former CEO Thomas Borgen,” lawyer Thomas Donatzky said on Tuesday, adding that he could not provide any details.

The Danish financial daily Børsen, which first reported on the lawsuit, said the US government and pension fund were seeking 10 million kroner (1.3 million euros) due to losses suffered after shares in Danske Bank plunged in 2018 when the bank got caught up in huge money laundering schemes.

An investigation carried out by an outside law firm for the bank found that it could not account for the origin of more than $220 billion that flowed through its Estonian branch from 2007 to 2015, much of which was suspected to have come from Russia.

Borgen resigned in the wake of the scandal and the bank closed its operations in the Baltic States and Russia.

“The contingent liabilities related to civil shareholder claims and related amount described in today’s media coverage is part of the disclosure in our Annual Report for 2020,” Danske Bank said in a statement.

The report put the total of such claims at 12.4 billion kroner at the end of 2020. 

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