Last week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Anže Logar spoke with his Danish counterpart Jeppe Kofod. According to the official statement, in a video conference, they expressed satisfaction with the excellent relations between the two countries, both EU member states and NATO allies. “They called for further strengthening of comprehensive cooperation and especially highlighted the opportunities in the field of economy with an emphasis on so called green economy. They confirmed the mutual interest in closer cooperation, also in the context of Slovenia’s presidency of the EU Council in the second half of next year.” I hope that they also discussed money laundering.Last week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Anže Logar spoke with his Danish counterpart Jeppe Kofod. According to the official statement, in a video conference, they expressed satisfaction with the excellent relations between the two countries, both EU member states and NATO allies. “They called for further strengthening of comprehensive cooperation and especially highlighted the opportunities in the field of economy with an emphasis on so called green economy. They confirmed the mutual interest in closer cooperation, also in the context of Slovenia’s presidency of the EU Council in the second half of next year.” I hope that they also discussed money laundering.
Denmark is the one country, where the news broke last September that the executive director of the largest Danish bank, Thomas Borgen, had resigned after the revelation of the money laundering scandal in the Estonian branch. The bank said at the time, that it was investigating € 200 billion in transactions, carried out between year 2007 and 2015, through the accounts of 15.000 non-residents, including clients from Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. However, as early as the beginning of August last year, Danish prosecutors announced, that they had taken the case under scrutiny. Danske Bank also investigated suspicious transactions with a help of an independent law firm.
In Slovenia, too, bank NLB had problems with money laundering. But look at this, according to unofficial information, prosecutor Jaka Brezigar wrote, that it had not been established, that any of the bank NLB employees would benefit materially, due to the bank’s business with an Iranian citizen. And that there is no evidence that criminal funds were coming into transaction accounts, or to be making any illegal earnings with this account holder. The prosecutor further explained that, based on the evidence gathered, this was a completely normal business practice with Iranian companies. Thus, Brezigar rejected the parliamentary commission’s complaint against the NLB bankers. Eloquent, isn’t it?
The IranNLBgate affair was discovered during the investigation of the bank hole, by an investigative commission, headed by the then MP Anže Logar.