A Murdered Central Banker's Warning Changed Everything for SEB

[mfcorey1]

When the world learned that billions in dirty funds had flowed through Danske Bank A/S and Swedbank AB, it proved disastrous for the two lenders. But when SEB AB was accused of similar offenses, people were more forgiving.


The difference can be traced back to a single point in time. SEB’s chief executive officer, Johan Torgeby, says his bank made a clear choice back in 2006. That’s when SEB started to tackle the kind of non-resident flows that have been at the epicenter of every Nordic-Baltic laundering scandal. Torgeby says SEB’s choices are largely thanks to a dead central banker from Russia.

Dodgy Flows -

Danske had about $220 billion in Estonian non-resident flows in 2007-2015Swedbank reportedly had about $155 billion in high-risk transactionsSEB says it had about $93 billion in Estonian non-resident flows in 2005-2018
SEB, like Swedbank, is based in Stockholm. Together, the two dominate the Baltic banking market in which large-scale money laundering is alleged to have taken place. For Russian criminals eager to get their funds to the West, the setup was perfect, providing access to some of the world’s most respected lenders via a region that was geographically close and familiar.

In 2006, SEB received a warning from Andrei Kozlov, a deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank who was visiting Estonia. Kozlov made clear that the Baltic region was being used as a conduit for money launderers. Oligarchs and criminals from the former Soviet Union were systematically targeting the region to channel questionable funds into the West. Once there, the money would be plowed into luxury real estate, yachts, fur coats and even private school tuition.

“Three days after Kozlov, we started to work with police,” Torgeby said in an interview.

Not long after he visited Estonia, Kozlov was shot dead. A subsequent trial attributed the murder to bankers angered by his efforts to fight money laundering.

The warning from Kozlov “was a really important event,” Torgeby said. It “kind of kick-started what we today would call the modern way of trying to limit risks associated with money laundering.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/a-murdered-central-bankers-warning-changed-everything-for-seb/ar-BBXAdhr?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=mailsignout

[ancianita]

1. When black money takes over banks and corrupts governments, humans lose their countries to

the bad guys.

There will be no more West.

[dewsgirl]

2. I can name a few off the top of my head, SEB, Deutsche, Alpha,

Spur, all affiliated with dirty Russian money and connected to Trump in some way.

[Lonestarblue]

3. In retrospect, it might have been better if we had lost the Cold War and the USSR still existed.

The breakup of the USSR led to the oligarchs of today, who enriched themselves by stealing the assets once owned by the state. Through banks that willingly helped them get the money out of Russia and into Western investments, they now own substantial property around the world. It is those hugely wealthy oligarchs, led by Putin, who are financing the attempted destruction of the West.

They’ve bought politicians in many counties who are willingly betraying their allegiance in return for money and power: Trump and the Republican Party leaders here, party leaders like Marine le Pen in France, and probably Boris Johnson in the UK. Italy just broke up a group forming a new Nazi party there. I wonder who was financing that effort.

Given their international reach and the ability to use Internet propaganda against an individual nation’s interests, is there any mechanism to stop them? Just as we’ve seen here, Trump and Republicans favor Russian interference and have stopped any meaningful attempt to upgrade cyber security and prevent foreign meddling in elections. Trump eliminated the role of the national cyber security coordinator and has not replaced many other cyber staff who have left. I hope that loyal career people staffing our intelligence agencies have been quietly beefing up security without Trump or the DOJ knowing. Some states have improved their election security, but the recent debacle in Pennsylvania should alarm everyone. The election machine totals showed a local candidate receiving only a few hundred votes but he actually received thousands and was the winner. I think we can expect utter chaos on November 3, 2020.

[Farmer-Rick]

5. It was my understanding that the US failed to provide needed loans

To help the crashing economic situation in Russia. That this failure, allowed the "free" market capitalist to run wild abusing the crumbling economy and making it worse.

Because the US failed to provide the loans, Russia turned to the filthy rich capitalist for funding. Those filthy rich conned and manipulated their way to stealing Russian wealth. Then the Russian mob stepped in under Putin's protection. They kicked out the foreign capitalist and put in their mobsters.

Is this wrong? This is how I remember it. But is this accurate?

[ancianita]

6. Still existed? They never went away. As Malcolm Nance says, the Soviet Union is reconstituted by

Putin, who came back blazing to raise the Soviet Union and to raze the West. "State paid" is bureaucracy, and the leadership of it is paid for by oligarchs who beat out the emerging capitalists after the Cold War, anyway.

Whatever I can read about or know generally is nothing compared to what's going on. Based on books I've read about Russian shell-covered insurgency here, 5th columnist capitalists like the Kochs and Mercers play right along, work legislatively to keep 40% of the country poor and desperate, so authoritarians here get ready-made, armed, fearful culties desperate to get paid to fill crowd space, start shoot-em-ups or destabilizing "anti-leftist," anti-"socialist" protests.

One mechanism to stop them are our local and Western journalists. The Russian Federation's live under threat. We have FOIA. We have military intel, and 17 intel agencies. We've got career professional, expert government people sworn to uphold the Constitution, at least those who've not been driven out. We have the biggest navy and air force on the planet, and we're the world's biggest weapons trader for these and other reasons.

We're smart enough to know the moves now and plan accordingly; even if some fake or real chaos is attempted in 2020, it will be handled.

[disndat]

4. This raises the mystery

of the suicide of the Deutche Bank money lender to Trump, last week in Malibu, Calif.

[ancianita]

7. Err on the side of thinking that there is a black money insurgency on bankers, and that suicide is

the coverup name for assassination.

Deutsche Bank has been under separate investigations for its role as Trump’s banker and as an intermediary that helped the Danish-based Danske Bank’s Estonian branch process suspect customer transactions originating from Russia, in the United States.

In fact, on the very day German authorities marched into Deutsche Bank headquarters in Frankfurt and seized files, police in Estonia announced the discovery of the body of Aivar Rehe, former head of Danske’s Estonian operations. His death, too, was determined to be a suicide.

In banking, suicides are not unconnected.