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Dutch Prosecutors Drop AML Cases Against Bank Executives

Prosecutors in the Netherlands have dropped their case against Ralph Hamers, a former chief executive of ING, six years after the bank incurred a record €775 million penalty for systemically violating anti-money laundering rules during his tenure.

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service announced Wednesday that a four-year investigation into Hamers, who led ING from 2013 to 2020, did not unearth sufficient, “convincing” evidence to hold him criminally responsible for AML-related weaknesses that allowed criminals to launder hundreds of millions of euros through the bank from 2010 to 2016.

Hamers and other board members took “insufficient” steps to eliminate the problems, but not to a level that would justify criminal liability, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors also dropped their case Wednesday against four former executives of another major Dutch lender, ABN AMRO, on Wednesday, three-and-a-half years after the lender paid nearly half a billion euros to address systemic AML violations from 2014 to 2020.

An “extensive” investigation concluded that the four executives, whom prosecutors did not name, “played their part or took actions that should have been appropriate” to address the deficiencies during the six years in question.

While their efforts did not “immediately” have the desired effect, investigators found no evidence to suggest that ” additional measures were available” that would have ended or substantially reduced the violations in the short term, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Moneylaundering.com may update this coverage as more information becomes available.
Topics : Anti-money laundering
Source: Netherlands
Document Date: December 18, 2024