Dirty Money Reports Surge in Denmark as Danske Case Causes Alarm

(Bloomberg) -- Danish companies reported 44 percent more suspicious financial transactions last year, as the Danske Bank A/S scandal puts the banking industry on high alert.

The Danish State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime said the number of reports rose last year to 35,768. There was also a 75 percent jump in the number of reports that were investigated further, the agency said in a statement.

“It’s good that we now see more reports on possible money laundering from the professional financial firms,” Police Inspector Thomas Riis said in the statement. “It’s critical that they are reported, so that we can investigate not just the specific case, but whether there is a more systematic problem tied to these thousands of reports.”

Danske Bank is embroiled in what may be Europe’s biggest money laundering scandal. Denmark’s largest bank said last year that much of about $230 billion in transactions done as recently as 2015 through Estonian accounts were suspicious. Police in multiple jurisdictions are investigating, and the Copenhagen-based bank faces potentially large fines.

To contact the reporter on this story: Frances Schwartzkopff in Copenhagen at fschwartzko1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net

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