Whistleblower claims Deutsche Bank took years to alert authorities about Danske Bank’s suspected money laundering activities

Despite a whistleblower flagging suspicious transactions five years ago, Deutsche Bank allegedly waited until February this year to disclose one million suspect money transfers it did for Danske Bank.

That is according to an exclusive report from Reuters based on an anonymous source with direct knowledge of the matter.

The news comes after Danish Danske Bank was thrown out of Estonia this year after having admitted that €200m ($220m) worth of suspicious money transactions were made through the bank. The scandal also included transfers that went through Swedbank, which has seen the Swedish bank oust its old chairman and its CEO.

Deutsche Bank became part of the scandal due to it processing transactions for Danske Bank. Prosecutors are now investigating if the people working at the German bank, including senior management, sanctioned the transactions and later tried to cover them up, according to the person Reuters spoke with.

Deutsche Bank has said it broke off the relationship with Danske Bank in 2015. While not commenting on the time it took to report the suspicious transactions to the authorities, it told Reuters that it had invested €700m ($772.09m) into its anti-financial crime unit since 2016.

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