Thread by @OCCRP

NEW: It’s been widely reported that the Estonian branch of Danske Bank let billions in suspicious money move through its accounts.

Now, a previously unseen report obtained by @berlingske provides stunning new details on how this looked in practice. 1/ occrp.org/en/investigati…

The report, produced by Estonian regulators in 2014, reads like a "how-to" of money laundering.

It lists technique after technique the bank’s shady foreign clients used to move large sums.

It also makes clear that the bank had little interest in questioning its clients. 2/

For example, the bank’s "relationship managers" accepted documentation from clients written in Azerbaijani, though no one on the team spoke the language.

(The bank said that one of its employees used Google Translate). 3/

Perhaps most importantly, the relationship managers did not appear to pay much attention to the contracts that justified their clients’ transfers, even when they were clearly absurd.

Here are a few examples ⬇️ 4/

One high-risk client supposedly bought 10,500 paint cans for an average price of $1,000 each.

Another claimed to have sold $500 million of metal pipes.

Inexplicable trades, especially those involving round numbers, are a classic sign of money laundering. 5/

Another company, which had no website and was registered a month before becoming Danske’s client, used nearly identical contracts to justify the movement of 100s of millions.

One was signed a year before the company was founded. Another was for the sale of a fake item. 6/

Perhaps the most egregious example of Danske’s failure to enforce anti-money-laundering regulations was with the so-called "Lantana group," a group of clients connected to a company later revealed to be tied to Vladimir Putin’s cousin. 7/

No one at Danske flagged Lantana’s large and unusual transactions, including the receipt of over $1.8 billion from a company in the group based on an unspecified "loan agreement." 8/

A Danske executive told auditors he "had a very bad feeling" about the situation. But the bank didn't fire its clients or report them. Instead, the bank suggested that Lantana fire themselves, allowing them to walk away with their funds — and Danske to avoid an investigation. 9/

These are just some of the problems Estonian regulators cited in their audit.

Read the full investigation for more. 10/

For more on the scandal this report described, check out our earlier investigation. 11/

occrp.org/en/the-fincen-…