Police Raid Nordea’s Danish Office Amid Money Laundering Probe

(Bloomberg) -- Danish police raided the Copenhagen offices of Nordea Bank Abp last week as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged money laundering at Scandinavia’s biggest bank.

The search by the Danish State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime was related to an investigation into “anti-money laundering compliance questions” revolving around former customers of its international branch, Nordea said in a statement Monday. The Helsinki-based bank said it’s cooperating with the authorities.

The raid, first reported by the newspaper Borsen, comes as police follow up on money laundering allegations against some of Scandinavia’s biggest banks. Last month the homes of the former chief executive officer of Danske Bank A/S and other top managers were raided amid revelations that a large part of $230 billion that flowed through its Estonian branch were suspicious.

Nordea set aside provisions of more than $100 million in anticipation of costs related to money laundering in April amid investigations by police and supervisory authorities. Nordea is also responding to inquiries from U.S. authorities regarding historical compliance with certain U.S. financial sanctions during 2008–2014.

Nordea reiterated previous statements that it has plowed more than $800 million into risk and compliance operations since 2015 to improve its defenses against criminals and has changed its focus to concentrate on the Nordic region. The bank says it has also stopped doing business with some customers of its international branch after evaluating them based on “a risk and compliance perspective.”

“We are fully cooperating with the prosecution service to ensure that they have access to all relevant information,” Frank Vang-Jensen, head of Nordea’s Danish operations, said in a statement. “We have nothing further to add at this point.”

--With assistance from Christian Wienberg.

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

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net, Nick Rigillo

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