A Danish woman was remanded in custody on Wednesday over her alleged involvement in a money laundering case in which more than 30 billion Danish crowns ($4.5 billion) was channelled through Danske Bank’s (DANSKE.CO) Estonian branch, Denmark’s public prosecutor said on Wednesday.
The 49-year old Danish citizen faced preliminary questioning at Copenhagen city court on Wednesday, where she was put into custody for 21 days, the prosecutor told Reuters.
The woman, whose name is protected by a publication ban, had been extradited to Denmark from Britain, where she had been kept in custody, the prosecutor said, adding she had ties to Russia.
During questioning, the woman said she had been shocked when police came to her house in England in July last year and confiscated computers and phones.
“I was in shock, because I know with 100 per cent, 200 per cent (certainty) that I have done nothing wrong,” she said, according to local news wire Ritzau.
The case, in which two other people have also been charged, came to the authorities’ attention during an investigation into one of the world’s biggest money laundering scandals at Danske Bank, Denmark’s biggest lender.
Danske is being investigated by authorities in several countries after more than 200 billion euros in suspicious transactions flowed through its Estonian branch from 2007 to 2015.
Danske Bank declined to comment on the case.
A 47-year old woman was also remanded in custody in May in Copenhagen city court in the same case, shortly after she was sentenced to almost four years in prison in a separate case of money laundering worth 140 million crowns.
The three suspects are possibly the first in Denmark to be subject to concrete legal action in connection with the money laundering case, apart from Danske Bank employees.
Charges brought against former chief executive Thomas Borgen and eight senior managers have been dropped by the Danish public prosecutor.
The charges against the three suspects allege they laundered money via several limited partnerships, all of which had bank accounts in Danske’s now shuttered Estonian branch, between March 2008 and March 2016.
REUTERS