Bank chief quits amid laundering probe findings

Together again: North and South Korean leaders take applause Denmark: ‘Significantpart’of€200bn‘suspicious’ Pakistani court frees former PM

The chief executive of Denmark’s largest bank has resigned amid findings of possible money laundering.

Thomas Borgen stepped down as an internal report into allegations of massive money laundering via Danske Bank’s Estonian branch showed that “the vast majority” of transactions “have been found to be suspicious”.

Danske Bank commissioned the probe last year after reports of dirty money flowing through its Baltic subsidiary including from family members of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The findings published yesterday show some €200 billion (£177bn) moved through its unit in Estonia.

“Overall, we expect a significant part of the payments to be suspicious,” the report said.

Mr Borgen said: “Danske Bank has not lived up to its responsibility in the case of possible money laundering in Estonia. I regret that deeply.”

He said that despite being cleared personally by the report “I think the right thing for all parties is that I resign”.

Danske Bank said the probe “has analysed a total of some 6,200 customers found to have hit the most risk indicators.

“Of these, the vast majority have been found to be suspicious”.

It added that the fact that a customer has been found to have suspicious characteristics “does not mean that there is a basis for considering all payments in which the customer in question was involved to be suspicious”.

“As CEO, I have the managerial responsibility

“I think the right thing for all parties is that I resign”

for what is happening in the bank, and of course I take it,” said Mr Borgen, who joined the Copenhagen-based bank in 1997 and became its CEO in September 2013. A Pakistani court has suspended the prison sentences of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, pictured, his daughter and son-in-law, and set them free on bail pending their appeal hearings.

The Islamabad High Court made the decision on a corruption case handed down to the Sharifs by a tribunal earlier this year.

Thomas Borgen has stood down from Danske Bank