Swedish lender Swedbank said Thursday it's been informed by Estonian authorities that its local subsidiary is suspected of money laundering in the Baltic country from 2014-2016.
Estonian Police has been investigating Swedbank's activities since 2019. The money laundering under investigation is linked to Mikhail Abyshov, a former member of the Russian government. In 2012-2018, Abyshov was a minister in the Russian government, leading a program called open government. He has been convicted of stealing and exporting four billion rubles. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Russia.
In March 2020, the Estonian financial watchdog issued a report of its findings regarding shortcomings in the anti-money laundering work of Swedbank AS. The unit has now been informed of the money laundering suspicion of more than 100 million euros by Estonian authorities, Swedbank said.
“Swedbank AS will review and analyze the suspicion in detail and continue the cooperation with the authority to resolve the historical matter,” Swedbank said, adding that the maximum fine for the suspected crime is 16 million euros ($18 million).
Swedbank serves tens of thousands of private and corporate customers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania through dozens of branches, and ranks among the top three banks in each country.
In the past years, the Baltic countries have been exposed to several financial scandals, particularly in Estonia and Latvia. It has been confirmed there that clients from Russia and former Soviet states misused the local banking sectors for suspicious transactions and money laundering.
The biggest banking scandal in the region surfaced in 2017-2018, when it became known that around €200 billion ($220 billion) of suspicious money transactions had flowed from Estonian, Russian, Latvian and other sources through the Estonian branch of Denmark’s Danske Bank from 2007 to 2015.
Former board members of the Swedbank's Estonian branch are well-known figures in Estonian society. For example, Robert Kitt helped develop the anti-money laundering start-up Salv and currently heads Utilitas Tallinn and Utilitas Eesti, responsible for the energy and heating of capital city Tallinn. Priit Perens runs the University Hospital of Tartu, which is the largest hospital in Estonia. Heiki Raadik is the CFO of the state-owned company Eesti Post. Toomas Tuuling led the prevention of money laundering and compliance checks at Nordea / Luminor Pank and is currently doing the same at Coop Pank. He is also a member of the Anti-Money Laundering Committee of the Banking Association.
