Swedbank is responsible for making the war in Ukraine possible, according to Swedish journalist Axel Gård Humlesjö. He recently published a book about how Russian intelligence services monitored the activities of the Scandinavian country's largest bank, writes Äripäev. :format(webp)/nginx/o/2024/02/29/15920912t1hb30f.jpg)
Swedbank. Photo: Remo Tõnismäe
Swedbank is responsible for making the war in Ukraine possible, according to Swedish journalist Axel Gård Humlesjö. He recently published a book about how Russian intelligence services monitored the activities of the Scandinavian country's largest bank, writes Äripäev.
The book begins in 2005, when Peter, a top manager at Swedbank's Swedish headquarters, meets a prostitute, Elena, at the Metropol Hotel in Moscow, making him vulnerable to Russian intelligence services.
Read the full text of the article in Äripäev .
In 2019, Swedish TV channels reported that billions of dollars in suspicious transactions, mostly linked to Russia, had been conducted through Swedbank’s Estonian branch. Just a month after the news broke, Swedbank’s board fired CEO Birgitte Bonnesen following a raid by Swedish police on the bank’s headquarters.
The Estonian Prosecutor's Office investigated whether some of the illegal transactions were carried out in Estonia, but the investigation did not find any evidence of a crime based on the information available. Further investigation could not be carried out because Russia did not disclose the information necessary for the investigation. According to the Prosecutor's Office, Swedbank cooperated with the investigation, so the Estonian office was not searched.
