The whistleblower who warned Danske Bank’s management about an unparalleled €200bn money laundering scheme was a British executive working in the Danish lender’s Estonian branch.
Howard Wilkinson, who was head of markets at Danske in Estonia between 2007 and 2014, warned managers in late 2013 that the bank had breached “numerous regulatory requirements . . . [and] behaved unethically . . . [and had] a near total process failure,” according to emails seen by the Financial Times.
Mr Wilkinson told Berlingske, the Danish newspaper that broke news of his involvement and the broader scandal, that “I have absolutely no problem sleeping at night” in response to press reports in Estonia questioning his role in the affair.
In several emails to the bank’s top management in Copenhagen seen by the FT, Mr Wilkinson laid out how a UK-based limited liability partnership (LLP) called Lantana Trade “apparently” had beneficial owners that included “the Putin family and the FSB”, the Russian intelligence services. The Kremlin told the FT: “President Putin has nothing to do with the mentioned bank.”
Mr Wilkinson’s warning was followed up in 2014 by Danske’s…
