Monday, December 13, 2021
Millions smuggled into garbage bags
British bank convicted of money laundering
For years, a gold dealer in Great Britain took advantage of the drowsiness of a bank and smuggled hundreds of millions of cash past the Treasury. Because the NatWest-Bank does nothing against money laundering, it is now condemned.
The couriers walked into the branches with garbage bags: But the British bank NatWest did nothing to prevent a gang of criminals in up to 50 of their branches depositing hundreds of millions of pounds within five years, as the financial regulator FCA reported in court. In one case, the money messengers dragged so much cash into the branch in Walsall in central England that the sacks were torn and the money was repackaged.
365 million pounds, including 264 million in cash, ended up in NatWest accounts, mostly in small towns, without the bank questioning their origin. In one branch alone it was 40 million euros. NatWest has to pay a fine of £ 265 million for money laundering. It is the first British bank ever to have been convicted of doing nothing against money laundering.
NatWest failed to monitor suspicious activity by a customer – Fowler Oldfield, a Bradford gold dealer and jeweler who was phased out after a police raid in 2016, the Financial Commission said. Ultimately, all transactions in the millions were attributable to the business.
The country’s largest commercial bank had already pleaded guilty on three counts in October of failing to properly screen suspicious accounts of a Bradford gold dealer and jeweler between 2012 and 2016.
The matter is also spicy because NatWest – back then as the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) – was bailed out by the state during the financial crisis and the majority is still in public hands. NatWest boss Alison Rose had apologized for the deficiencies in money laundering supervision.