Bank saw suspicious activity in Trump accounts

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Anti-moneylaundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald Trump and his sonin-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.

The transactions, some of which involved Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance personnel who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspiciousactivity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.

But executives at Deutsche Bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice. The reports were never filed with the government.

The nature of the transactions was not clear. At least some of them involved money flowing between overseas entities or individuals, which bank employees considered suspicious.

Real estate developers such as Trump and Kushner sometimes do large, all-cash deals, including with people outside the United States, any of which can prompt antimoney-laundering reviews. The red flags raised by employees do not necessarily mean that the transactions were improper. Banks sometimes opt not to file suspicious-activity reports if they conclude that their employees’ concerns are unwarranted.

But former Deutsche Bank employees said the decision not to report the Trump and Kushner transactions reflected the bank’s generally lax approach to money-laundering laws. The employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve their ability to work in the industry, said it was part of a pattern of the bank’s executives rejecting valid reports to protect relationships with lucrative clients.

“You present them with everything, and you give them a recommendation, and nothing happens,” said Tammy Mcfadden, a former Deutsche Bank anti-moneylaundering specialist who reviewed some of the transactions. “It’s the D.B. way. They are prone to discounting everything.”

Mcfadden said she was terminated last year after she raised concerns about the bank’s practices. She has since filed complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators about the bank’s antimoney-laundering enforcement.

Kerrie Mchugh, a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman, said the company has intensified its efforts to combat financial crime. An effective anti-money-laundering program, she said, “requires sophisticated transaction screening technology as well as a trained group of individuals who can analyze the alerts generated by that technology both thoroughly and efficiently.”

“At no time was an investigator prevented from escalating activity identified as potentially suspicious,” she said. “Furthermore, the suggestion that anyone was reassigned or fired in an effort to quash concerns relating to any client is categorically false.”