S&P Global Market Intelligence, the financial newswire where I work as a reporter, recently published my investigative series into FBME, the now closed rogue Cypriot bank linked to the Russian mafia, Syrian war crimes, fraud, money laundering, corrupt offshore finance & other illegalities. The newswire is usually available only to subscribers, but these stories are free to read.
Part one shows how, thanks to FBME’s brazen rulebreaking, Russian gangsters who robbed the state (in what became known as the Magnitsky case) channelled their dirty money into Syrian tyrant Bashar Al-Assad’s banned weapons program:
Part two exposes the variegated bunch of crooks and politically-connected businesspeople that took advantage of FBME’s dodgy services, as well as a number of moody schemes in which the bank’s owners were involved directly:
The third part looks into what exactly went wrong in the bank’s compliance department, allowing money laundering, fraud and sanctions evasion to take place for years… This one is for those who care about financial procedures known as AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know your customer):
S&P Global Market Intelligence is one of the only six publications that obtained the ream of confidential audits, internal reports and witness statements which revealed the extent of the wrongdoing at this bank. The others are Asia Sentinel, Cyprus Mail, Buzzfeed UK, CNN and The Daily Beast.