The Financial Times of London newspaper reports the Germany’s Deutsche Bank is facing an expanded money laundering investigation by U.S. authorities into its activities in Russia amid evidence of possible violations of international sanctions.
The report says some scrutinized transactions made by Deutsche Bank’s Moscow unit allegedly involved U.S. dollars and a former banker who is a U.S. citizen.
The newspaper says it is one of the first known U.S. investigations of a Wall Street company that has been tied to potential breaches of western sanctions against Russia since the measures were imposed following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
It says the probe is focusing on some $65 billion worth of so-called mirror trades, in which Russian clients bought securities in Russian rubles through Deutsche Bank’s Moscow office and then sold identical ones for foreign currency, including U.S. dollars, through the bank’s London office.