Vienna, August 22, 2019 — infopulsetoday.com — Bill Browder has done this before.
The anti-money-laundering activist filed a criminal complaint in Vienna on August 22, 2019. It targets two European banks.
Raiffeisen Bank International of Austria. Danske Bank of Denmark. The allegation: they processed hundreds of millions of dollars in dirty money from former Soviet states.
Browder submitted evidence to the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office.
He claims as much as $230 billion in questionable funds from Danske flowed through Raiffeisen. Raiffeisen officials reportedly failed to report those transactions to regulators.
Shares in Raiffeisen dropped 12 percent in March following the allegations.
The complaint focuses on the Estonian branch of Raiffeisen and Danske Bank. Browder alleges they funneled dirty money through dummy corporations.
Those corporations are registered in Belize, the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands, or Panama.
“Several of the companies that send the illegal money are just dummy corporations or do not have enough capital,” Browder said. He noted the people receiving the funds have no permanent business address there and typically purchase expensive property in Europe. The number that jumps out is $967 million.
That is the amount Browder’s complaint says flowed from Danske Bank to Raiffeisen and other local Austrian banks. The money came from Russian syndicates.
Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, has long campaigned against Russian corruption.
His evidence points to a systematic failure by Austrian financial institutions to police illicit money from the Russian underworld. This is not a small scandal.
It extends beyond these two banks. Other European institutions are ensnared in a web of deception that has cost lenders billions in stock value. The complaint and its origins trace back to Browder’s years-long fight.
He has been a Kremlin critic.
He has pushed for accountability in financial systems that let oligarchs and criminals move money across borders with little oversight. The Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office now has the evidence.
What they do with it is unclear.
Browder has a track record. His work led to the Magnitsky Act in the United States.
That law targets human rights abusers and corrupt officials.
He has been a thorn in the side of Russian authorities. They have tried to silence him. He keeps filing complaints.
For Raiffeisen, the timing is brutal. The bank already saw its shares slide in March.
Now a formal criminal investigation looms.
For Danske, it is another chapter in a long-running money-laundering saga. The bank’s Estonian branch has been at the center of a massive scandal involving non-resident accounts.
Estimates suggest as much as $230 billion in suspicious transactions flowed through that branch between 2007 and 2015. Browder’s complaint connects the two banks directly. He alleges Raiffeisen processed funds from Danske’s Estonian operations.
The dummy corporations in obscure jurisdictions made it hard to trace the money.
Belize. The Seychelles.
The British Virgin Islands.
Panama. These are not places where legitimate businesses with real operations register.
They are places where shells hide.
Browder said the people receiving the funds typically purchase expensive property in Europe. That property is often in London or other major cities. The pattern is familiar.
Dirty money moves through a bank in one country. It passes through another bank in a different country.
It ends up in real estate.
The banks collect fees. The criminals get assets.
The system keeps turning. The complaint asks Vienna prosecutors to investigate. It requests they look into the flow of $967 million from Danske to Raiffeisen and other local banks.
Browder wants answers.
He wants accountability. He wants Austrian regulators to explain why they did not catch this.
The scandal has already cost lenders billions in stock value.
More losses could come. Regulators across Europe are watching.
The European Central Bank has been cracking down on money laundering in the banking sector.
Raiffeisen and Danske are now in the crosshairs. The question is whether the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office will act on Browder’s evidence. If they do, the consequences could be severe.
If they do not, the message is clear: you can move dirty money through Austria with impunity.
