Former Swedbank Employees Charged With Laundering ‘Large’ Sums

(Bloomberg) -- Several former employees of Swedbank AB were charged by authorities in Latvia with money laundering after its branch there reported suspicious transactions involving large sums of cash as recently as 2017.

Latvian prosecutors filed allegations against 11 people, including ex-employees of Swedbank’s local unit, earlier this year, Laura Majevska, spokeswoman for prosecutor’s office, said by phone. She declined to specify how many of the 11 had worked at Stockholm-based Swedbank.

Sweden hit its largest mortgage lender with a record fine of 4 billion kronor ($406 million) in March, after a bank-commissioned investigation unearthed some $40 billion in suspicious transactions, mainly through its Estonian operations. Swedbank, which sacked its chief executive officer, is still under investigation by U.S. and Estonian authorities, and could face further penalties.

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The former employees in Latvia allowed customers to exchange “large amounts of cash” without recording their names or the origin of the funds, according to a May 12 statement by Swedbank on its Latvian website. The transactions took place over a “period” and ended in 2017 after Swedbank improved controls, according to the statement. The employees were fired.

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