Swedish media, in a 5 day prime-time series, and the Swedish population explodes when finding out that their Swedish company operating in Europe did not respond to U.S. local law enforcement inquiries. Article from:
– https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/american-financial-authority-investigates-swedbank-in-money-laundering-case
– https://www.svt.se/special/swedbank/english/investigators/
“The New York State Department of Financial Services has initiated an investigation into Swedbank, according to a document presented to Swedish Television, SVT. The suspicions relate to misleading information in connection with the DFS demanding an answer from Swedbank about the notorious law firm Mossack Fonseca.
SVT has revealed that the Swedish banking giant Swedbank’s top management withheld information on suspect customers and transactions from US investigators.
On several occasions, in 2016 and 2018, Swedbank was urged by the financial authority DFS to disclose all contacts their customers had with the notorious law firm Mossack Fonseca, whose customers are linked to many criminal activities, including money laundering.”
… “DFS demands that Swedbank submit extensive documentation regarding business relations with Danske Bank. This involves transactions, customer information and notifications made to authorities, as well as all possible external and internal investigations that in some way may affect Danske Bank.
Swedbank has also been requested to provide equally extensive information on their business relations with three other banks that all have been involved in large-scale money laundering scandals: Ukio Bankas, ABLV and FBME.
Swedbank replies
The DFS has requested information on several persons and businesses that SVT previously have reported on. Among them Iskander Makhmudov and former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. The letter is signed by the head of the DFS, who writes:”
The New York authorities delivered the “request” to the New York local branch, and asked for a global answer.
The Swedish public is aghast that the Swedish bank operating in Europe would not have provided full criminal evidence to the U.S. legal agency.
The whole affair is related to the now-closed Mueller investigation, previously-prosecuted Manafort FBAR conviction, and the long-ago Soros/US-Aid funded Panama Papers affair.
It seems that the bank was “caught” handling Manafort-related bank transfers…….this despite the fact that Manafort was not convicted of money laundering–He got caught with FBAR violations, bank fraud, and tax cheating.
It also alleges that payments were sent by Swedbank to companies (including Manafort’s in the Caribbean. Never mind that many Swedish companies’ parent and daughter companies and ships are also registered there, and that global transactions go back and forth all the time. In these stories, the bank transfers are summarized as “money laundering” although there is no crime to launder.
So, when a U.S. legal agency “requests” information about any European transactions of anybody including any American, the Swedish media, authorities, bank officers, and public will all spank themselves if they don’t hand it over.
So much for those European constitutions and all that innocent-til-proven guilty stuff they’ve got written in there. Sweden had once held a spark of FATCA resistance, reversed itself, til it finally celebrated its FATCA surrender. Crying is now long over.
As a result of it all, Swedbank stock tanked (did Soros short Swedbank stocks too?) and depositors are jittery.
With the rise of “Nationalism” and right wing extremism in may countries, states, I predict further problems with transparency requirements and reporting as expected with FATCA and other agreements such as the CRA. It’s going to get ugly!
@stephen arvay
“With the rise of ‘Nationalism’ and right wing extremism in many countries…”
European elections are coming up. Can’t wait to thank Europe for bringing us Fatca with my vote…
Between Brexit and all the various sub-species of Nazi popping up everywhere, maybe it’s better just to postpone those European elections…
How ironic that many US expats continue to blame the “right” for this tyranny called FATCA. Just for the record, it was left-wing democrats that put this abortion together and snuck it in as a rider on a bill. It was that closet communist and openly hard-left POTUS named Obama who blithely signed it into law.
Since then, it has been almost exclusively democrat politicians who have vigorously defended FATCA in various televised hearings-more than one that I have watched on YouTube.
The only president who even attempted to ease the CBT tax burden was Ronald Reagan by raising the exemption threshold in the ’80’s. The only politicians on our side who have voiced their shock and have called for its repeal have been principled men like Rand Paul and a handful of others. So, the actual elected officials trying vainly to help us so far have been “right-wingers” and/or staunch defender’s of the US Constitution…in other words, patriots.
I am hard pressed to understand how any US expat, having done even cursory research on the history of FATCA, and its various enforcement tools, can be so ideologically stubborn as to not see your real allies in Washington DC, and insist on blaming them for our predicament. But carry on with your sad convictions if it makes you happy…and good luck.
It’s not a left-right issue. Both parties have been disastrous. Who was in power when Congress invented the Transition Tax for small business owners, again?
I see this very much as leftist conspiracy behaviour. It is 1984. It is Orwellian. It is Big Brother. It is State ownership of the people. It is “all are equal but some are more equal than others”. Yes there are idiots in what was supposed to be more Conservative parties. Hence terms like RINO. The root however unmistakably lies in ulra leftist philosophy which can only survive until people say “no more” as happened in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
They do have a branch in New York. Those lines on the map do mean a lot to bureaucrats. They could have closed down the branch long ago.
@Duality European elections are coming up. Can’t wait to thank Europe for bringing us Fatca with my vote… While I fully agree with your statement and need to change in the next election, we felt the same and were tricked by our current prime minister. Before Trudeau was elected, he sent a personal letter to Blaze(Lynne) explaining his stand against the previous government’s decision to allow a foreign government to tax Canadian citizens and the fact that the Canadian government should protect Canadians from this action. Well….. he lied. Once elected, he did a complete 180 and went back on every word. There is nothing “honourable” about our prime minister, in fact, ha clearly cannot be trusted in any way. This, unfortunately, tells that our votes will likely be a waste of time in some cases. Canada is doomed with the current political system and all of it’s laws. The people are just beginning to see this. If this continues, the country will be in big trouble. I really you find another party has honesty, but, in our case here in Canada, we were all duped again.
@nonomynous. At least stick to your guns. Before it was “sub species of nazis”, now it’s “both parties have been disastrous” and “not a left-right thing”. Hah, it’s very much a left-right thing. The American left owns this FATCA business lock, stock and smoking barrel. In fact the left owns the adoption of progressive income tax, a brainchild of Karl Marx, with the 1913 passing of the 16th amendment. The left has been busy emasculating the founding American principles of individual sovereignty for over a hundred years now and have hardly finished. It’s a work in progress that never ends, this tyranny thing.So many free men to enslave, so little time,..
If the so-called republicans have been weak then I suppose you can call that disastrous by omission. Most are corporate whores worthy of contempt because they refuse to fight, Ultimately it’s the American voter who continues to demonstrate his lack of affinity for anything resembling sovereignty or real freedom and independence. This isn’t over this thing. I may not live long enough to see who wins in the end but it’s guaranteed to get bloody.
@Nervous Investor. I salute your post and believe we mainly think alike.I once had a bumper sticker on my car forty years ago in California. It said “I may not know what freedom is, but I sure as hell know what it ain’t”.
@Eric – In the earlier comment I was referring specifically to the European elections, nothing to do with FATCA or US politics.
@NativeCanadian
“While I fully agree with your statement and need to change in the next election, we felt the same and were tricked by our current prime minister.”
Although I understand your opinion on the matter, I think you misunderstood my comment. I meant that my vote would go to MEPs who would wreak havoc in Brussels. Since Brussels did nothing to stop FATCA which is wreaking havoc on some lives across Europe, I will reciprocate with my vote. Not an ethical way to vote, tough sh*t for them…