Gerrit Zalm, former CEO of ABN Amro, and former board member Chris Vogelsang have been identified as suspects in ABN Amro’s money laundering case. They have resigned their positions at Danske Bank with immediate effect.
OM announced Monday morning that it had imposed a fine of nearly half a billion on ABN Amro because its anti-money laundering policy had not been sound for years. Three former board members are suspected. It is not yet known if they will also be tried for their involvement. Two of the suspects are former CEO Gerrit Zalm (2009-2017) and Chris Vogelsang, who was a member of the board of directors during the same period.
Very amazed
Both held positions at Danske Bank: Vogelzang as chairman and Zalm as supervisory director. the first He gave up Due to the ABN Amro case. He says he’s “ very surprised ” by the allegations: “ I left ABN Amro over four years ago and I’m convinced that I fulfilled my responsibilities with integrity and dedication. My status as a suspect does not mean that I will be prosecuted. He resigned, also because Danske Bank itself had lost its credibility due to a money laundering case in the Estonian branch. Danske Bank recently received a warning from the UK regulator over its restriction: Clients only receive a loan if they also open a checking account. Vogelzang was succeeded by Carsten Egeriis. At the end of the press release, the bank announced that the supervisory director Zalem would also be leaving his position.
The wine is also suspected
According to sources, Yup Fine is the third suspect at work. He was a board member of ABN Amro at the same time as Zalm and Vogelzang. Wijn is now the supervisory director at ASR and Schiphol. Zalm and Wijn both had political functions: Zalm had been VVD’s finance minister for many years and Wine (CDA) had been minister of state for economic and financial affairs. He also held the position of Minister of Economic Affairs for a short period.
ABN Amr responded
ABN Amro says he regrets the situation that has arisen ‘And she acknowledges the seriousness of the matter and that she has failed to fulfill her role as a gatekeeper for the purpose of combating money laundering. ABN Amro will continue to do everything possible to fulfill his role as gatekeeper. The bank also notes that The checkout process called customer lifecycle was disabled. In all cases, it is related to the period 2014 – 2020. Kees van Dijkhuizen succeeds Zalm as CEO in 2017 and retires in 2020: under his leadership, Wwft was violated for another three years. However, he is not on the public prosecution’s list of suspects.
The current CEO Robert Sewak says, “ I regret to admit that in the past ABN Amro has not been able to properly perform his important role as a gatekeeper. This is unacceptable and we are fully responsible for it. The CEO indicates that significant investment has already been made to establish Improve transaction control. “Unfortunately, however, we must note at the same time that despite all efforts and intentions, our improvement programs have not always achieved the desired effect, and many shortcomings, some of them serious, have been identified in our customer life cycle processes.” They are central. “By the end of 2020, the total number of full-time jobs in ABN Amro’s customer life cycle operations had increased to 3,800 (one in five jobs).