The New York State regulator noted that Danske Estonia is “at the center of one of the world’s largest money-laundering scandals” and Deutsche Bank placed it on its “highest possible risk rating.”
However, the German investment bank and financial services company “failed to take appropriate action to prevent Danske Estonia from transferring billions of dollars of suspicious transactions through Deutsche Bank accounts in New York.”
With regard to FBME, the DFS said Deutsche Bank’s relationship represented a similar “failure to act on red flags concerning a correspondent banking relationship with a foreign bank.”
The German investment bank and financial services company also considered FBME as a high-risk client that required annual enhanced anti-money checks.
FBME failed to improve the quality of its controls over several years. Its failures prompted the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to order all banks operating in the country to stop doing business with it.
