Money laundering



Yesterday an interesting article occurred on Helsingin Sanomat website referring to news related to suspected money laundering that happened in Danske Bank's Estonian branch during 2007–2015.

The case has probably absolutely nothing to do with the scams I have written about in my blog. Nevertheless, there was some information worth mentioning what comes to money laundering and banks in general.

Danske Bank is the largest bank in Denmark. It also operates in several countries in the northern European region.

The money laundering suspicion concerns a total amount of 200 billion euros transferred between 2007 and 2015 through Danske Bank's Estonian branch.

Now, what's interesting is that despite being an European bank, Danske Bank is facing criminal investigation by U.S. authorities. The bank is now cooperating with U.S. Department of Justice over Estonian branch. But why US authorities are investigating an European bank?

Another article by Helsingin Sanomat related to the money laundering case enlightens us about the matter.

The article tells us that American JP Morgan, one of the largest banks in the world, had been transferring US dollar payments of the Estonian Danske Bank. In July 2013 JP Morgan quitted operating payments and gave a serious warning to the Estonian Danske Bank after noticing suspicious backgrounds of its clients. 

According to anti-money laundering regulation banks must know the exact beneficials of the accounts of their clients. What comes to the Estonian money laundering case, the bank has been severely neglecting its duties. 

Apparently banks of the U.S. are very observant what comes to money laundering. For example last year Deutsche Bank was fined 630 million dollars for failures over Russian money laundering



Scams, fear the U.S!





Strict policies of U.S. regulation and nosy banks are also a fact acknowledged by scams throughout the world. Hence scams operating outside the U.S. usually try to exclude U.S. citizens from participating. – Well, it's not like they really make an effort to prevent dollars from coming in.

During these nearly three years that my blog has existed among many banks that have visited is also JP Morgan. Taking a closer look on the visitor statistics show 57 users from the bank between August 2016 to August 2018. Most of the visits go to OneCoin related posts. Well, I'm just guessing here, but maybe JP Morgan was interested in money transfers involving dollars.




There has also been some visits from the IRS, which is not surprising now that it is known that there has been a criminal investigation of money laundering considering 400 million dollars related to OneCoin. 

The risks involved in traditional money laundering has driven many scams to choose other payment methods instead of wire transfers between banks. Sadly also cryptocurrency is growing its popularity as a payment method for scams, and from what I have seen, there are plenty of gullible people holding cryptocurrencies.

Comments

  1. The SEC in the US is also quite efficient in shutting down Ponzi frauds and Pyramid scams. The usual flow is this:
    Scamster: "We promise 200% ROI."
    SEC: "Please provide evidence on how this is not unregistered securities offering."
    Scamster: "We do not operate in the US anymore."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, that's how it usually goes.

      However, for example OneCoin has been careful not to set its foot on U.S. soil from the beginning of the scam. Yet there has been people like Tom McMurrain in the U.S. openly promoting OneCoin.


      Maybe SEC considered that sending money to OneCoin is like sending money to a Nigerian prince. It's pretty much like in Finland – it's not against any law to willingly lose your money.

      Delete
  2. @Ari , Is there anyway I could make contact with you regarding a Blockchain company running a scam ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have a Facebook account so you can approach via Messenger. You can also send private messages using Twitter:
      https://twitter.com/widell_ari

      Delete
  3. Has anyone been scammed by companies like btcmt4? I was in February 2017 and then another pingpipe company in June 2018, both companies under the same way of operating each scam: Selling hosting / mt4 systems and after that request a one month advance payment, when it is done the payment they cancel the hosting or the system stops working, no matter how many complaints are made and that they try to contact them, they do not give answers. I received information that all these scams are being carried out by a Frenchman named Philippe Ballesio, together with his wife Rosaline Ballesio.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haven't heard about btcmt4.

      I made a google search by "Philippe Ballesio". Looks like he's got a certain reputation.

      Delete

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