The Financial Times (23.10.2019) quoted Swedbank’s new CEO who said that their own internal investigation into their money laundering scandal is being headed by the law firm Clifford Chance at cost about €93 million!
That is equal to 2 500 well paid workers working for a year! It is said that they are looking at 20 to 30 billion payments that took place between 2007 and 2019.
There can be no advisory work in the history of banking that has seen such outrageous fees being paid to lawyers!
The facts show the following matters:
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- The size of money laundering was massive – and nobody in Swedbank knew? Of course they knew…
- The size of money laundering was massive – and none of the other banks knew. Of course they knew…
- The size of money laundering was massive – we now know that many other banks were involved… Danske Bank and Nordea Bank, etc… and nobody in these banks knew? Of course they knew…
- The size of money laundering was so massive – and probably continues to be because nobody seems to know anything about what has been going on then, now and in the future.
The fines that are expected to be paid in the USA will also be beyond any sense of belief.
So the question is – can we trust banks to stop money laundering on a massive scale?
The answer to that question must be negative…
… and now we have that exemplar of transparent honesty called Facebook that wants to create its own currency for oligarchs, communist leaders, and other crooks to spend freely on yachts, mansions, castles, jets, helicopters, private schools and universities for offspring, and trophy wives and girlfriends.
In their latest financial statements, Swedbank says:
“Money laundering is a global problem. It is only through better cooperation between banks, other payment providers, legislators, authorities and financial police that it can be successfully combated.”
Wishful thinking is going on here because the police and regulators could not even see the massive money laundering that was going on right under their noses during the last 10 years.
