Estonia has made its first arrests in one of the biggest money laundering scandals in history involving Denmark’s Danske Bank, detaining 10 former employees at the bank’s Estonian branch, the state prosecutor said Wednesday.
Authorities in Denmark, Estonia, Britain and the United States are investigating payments totalling 200 billion euros (180 billion pounds) made through the Danish bank’s tiny Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015.
“Six people had been detained by the criminal police on Tuesday and an additional four on Wednesday morning,” the Estonian prosecutor said in a statement.
“There is a reason to suspect they knowingly transferred clients’ money which were under money laundering suspicion,” the statement said.
Danske said in a report published in September that it had reported eight former employees to the Estonian police. The report said in total 42 employees and agents were deemed to have been involved in suspicious activity.
Danske Bank could not immediately comment.
The Estonian state prosecutor will hold a news conference in Tallinn at 1000 GMT.
