AML failings cost Sweden’s Svea Bank €1.5 million fine, how Zuckerberg chose $3 billion profit over fraud prevention
From Paul O'Donoghue at AMLi
DURING THE pandemic, one of Nationwide’s customers suddenly struck gold.
‘Customer A’ only had declared income of £80,000 per year. Yet, between 2020 and 2021, over £27 million in Covid supports flowed into their Nationwide accounts.
Suspicious, UK officials tried to freeze the payments. But before they could, over £800,000 of UK taxpayer funds were transferred out. The money will likely never be recovered.
This case is the key reason why the UK’s FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) last week hit Nationwide with a major £44 million ($59 million) fine.
The regulator highlighted multiple compliance failures at the firm, including issues around its due diligence.
But the case of the £27 million Covid fraud was the one the FCA returned to again and again in its judgement.
And the watchdog's findings give fascinating insight - such as how Nationwide could have linked ‘Customer A’ to a fraud scheme all the way back in 2019.
Here at AML Intelligence, we have the story of that £27 million fraud. How it happened - and how Nationwide missed a string of red flags.
AML FINE FOR SVEA BANK: Swedish supervisor Finansinspektionen has fined Svea €1.5 million for AML failings. Svea which offers corporate loans, lines of credit, corporate invoicing and factoring, and personal loans and savings was found to have several process failings.
Svea had no assessment of how a number of products could be used for money laundering or terrorist financing. The bank’s risk assessments were not designed to incorporate AML/CFT risk. Svea also had “not considered relevant customer risk factors that were identified in the general risk assessments.”
“In terms of high-risk customers, in a high percentage of the cases that were reviewed, Svea has either not taken any enhanced customer due diligence measures at all or not taken sufficient customer due diligence measures. In some cases, the measures were taken too late,” the supervisor said.
Finansinspektionen said it was “issuing Svea a remark that, in order to be an adequate intervention, will be accompanied by an administrative fine of SEK 170 million.” The full story is on the AML Intelligencehomepage now.
DANSKE: For years, Danske Bank has been plagued by a string of compliance issues linked to €200 billion of suspicious payments made through its Estonian branch.
The bank pleaded guilty in late 2022 to bank fraud conspiracy, forfeiting $2 billion to settle the U.S. investigation.
As part of the deal, it was placed under corporate probation - that probation has now finished, marking the end of all formal regulatory processes tied to the Estonia scandal.
SHELL COMPANIES: Tracfin, France’s FIU, has issued new guidance advising how to detect shell companies which criminals may use for financial crime.
We’ve compiled the warning signs, alongside diagrams showing how criminals launder through shell companies, [HERE].
CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR YOUR AFC DEPARTMENT:‘European Anti-Financial Crime Summit 2026’ is set to be the AFC event of the year. Taking place in Dublin on April 29 next, the Summit features the top global speakers in front of some 1,000 delegates. There are still some Early Bird tickets available at the discounted price. It’s the ideal present for your AFC department. Book your tickets here:European Anti-Financial Crime Summit
European Anti-Financial Crime Summit in Dublin in May 2025
ASB BANK: New Zealand’s ASB Bank, a subsidiary of Australia's Commonwealth Bank, faces a $6.7 million ($3.9 million) fine over multiple 'serious' AML breaches.
The AML issues included failures to conduct adequate customer due diligence and delays in reporting suspicious activity. The case will now go before the country’s High Court, which must approve the final penalty amount.
MORTGAGE FRAUD: Officials in the Netherlands have arrested seven men in a probe into alleged mortgage fraud and falsification of financial documents.
FIU Netherlands warned that the crime crowds out law-abiding buyers and inflates property prices, with officials looking to crack down further.
META PROMOTES FRAUD FOR PROFIT: Last year, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta had to reckon with an ugly conclusion about its Chinese advertising customers - they were defrauding Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users worldwide.
Though China’s authoritarian government bans use of Meta social media by its citizens, Beijing lets Chinese companies advertise to foreign consumers on the globe-spanning platforms. As a result, Meta’s advertising business was thriving in China, ultimately reaching over $18 billion in annual sales in 2024, more than a tenth of the company’s global revenue.
Zuckerberg’s company calculated 19% of that money – more than $3 billion – was coming from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content, according to internal Meta documents.
The documents are part of a cache of previously unreported material generated over the past four years by teams including Meta’s finance, lobbying, engineering and safety divisions. The cache reveals Meta’s reluctance to introduce fixes that could undermine its business and revenues. Read our special report on how Meta opted for profits over the safety of its users on the AML Intelligence homepage now.
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Have a great Wednesday 👋
Stephen and the team at AMlintelligence.
