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CRIME

Danish court jails woman in 4 billion euro money laundering case

A Danish court on Thursday sentenced a woman to jail for attempting to launder nearly four billion euros, the largest case of money-laundering in the Nordic country's history.

Published: 23 June 2022 15:00 CEST
danske bank
Major Danish banks, including Danske Bank, Jyske Bank, and Denmark's National Bank, faced cyberattacks that shut down their websites. Photo: Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

The 49-year-old Lithuanian woman had confessed to the crime in police interviews, Denmark’s Prosecution Service said in a statement.

Between December 2008 and March 2016, nearly four billion euros were funnelled through a series of companies, all of which had accounts in Danske Bank’s Estonian branch.

“This is the largest amount we have seen in a money laundering case brought before a court in Denmark,” special prosecutor Lisette Jørgensen said in a statement.

“The woman had a role in a large money laundering complex built around 40 Danish limited partnerships,” Jorgensen added.

Using her expertise, she “made it possible for the companies to move money around in order to disguise their illegal origins”, the prosecutor said.

According to the prosecution service, two other defendants in the case have also been linked to the companies. 

One is a 49-year-old former Russian citizen who is in custody after she was extradited from the UK in December 2021, and the other is a 56-year-old Lithuanian man living in Denmark.

The Lithuanian woman sentenced Thursday was given three years and 11 months in prison for laundering millions in a separate case. 

Together with Thursday’s verdict, her total sentence is eight years in jail.

Prosecutors also said the case is connected a larger scandal involving Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest.

The bank is still recovering after it became embroiled in criminal investigations in several countries over some 200 billion euros in transfers that passed through its Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015, involving some 15,000 foreign clients, many Russian.

READ ALSO: Danish police drop money laundering case against Danske Bank directors

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CRIME

Denmark to add war crimes to criminal code

Denmark is to give international war crimes a specific paragraph in its criminal code, ending its position as one of the last European countries not to have specific laws on war crimes.

Published: 21 March 2023 11:58 CET
Denmark to add war crimes to criminal code

The government confirmed on Tuesday that it supports a motion by the opposition Socialist People’s Party (SF) to introduce a war crimes paragraph.

“I think it’s important to say first and foremost that war crimes are already illegal in Danish criminal law,” Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard told news wire Ritzau.

“It is not written in as specific clauses in the criminal law, but all offences that are war crimes are criminal,” he said.

“But with all that said, I think that SF has an important point in saying that the time has now come for us to introduce an independent criminalisation of war crimes. I think that would send out an important message to the world, and especially to victims,” he said.

“I will therefore, when the motion is discussed tomorrow [Tuesday, ed.] say, that the government backs criminalising war crimes independently under Danish law,” he said.

Hummelgaard plans to initiate a committee to look into how laws against war crimes can be written and added to the criminal code.

The committee will also consider whether sentences for war crimes should be higher than existing sentences given from crimes such as murder and torture.

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