Interpol Chases Danish Woman Suspected of $17 Million Fraud

(Bloomberg) -- Danish police are working with Interpol to find a 64-year-old woman suspected of having embezzled millions of dollars over several years while working at the country’s social ministry.

The ministry said on Tuesday it had uncovered a case implicating a single employee in a 111 million-krone ($17 million) case of fraud spanning 2002-2018.

“This is a very serious case,” Public Prosecutor Morten Niels Jakobsen said in a statement. “The suspect is currently at large outside Denmark, so we’re working closely with our international partners.”

It’s the latest in a string of scandals that raises questions about levels of corruption in Denmark. The country is still trying to track down billions of dollars lost through a combination of tax evasion and a botched handling of foreign claims on dividend taxes. Meanwhile, Denmark’s biggest lender Danske Bank A/S is at the center of an historic money laundering scandal that the government has warned risks tarnishing the whole country’s reputation.

In the case of the employee at the social ministry, Jakobsen said the person suspected of fraud appears to have used a “disciplined and systematic approach.”

“The next step is to detain the woman and to investigate properly whether there are grounds for criminal prosecution,” Jakobsen said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Wienberg in Copenhagen at cwienberg@bloomberg.net

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

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