Major UK bank fined $350 million after money laundering scandal

LONDON - NatWest Group was fined 264.7 million pounds at a sentencing hearing after pleading guilty to failing to prevent money laundering in a case that heard details of hundreds of thousands of pounds being couriered in black garbage bags and branch vaults overflowing with bank notes.

The bank admitted to three criminal charges in October, accepting that it failed to prevent money laundering at an English gold dealer. NatWest took in some 365 million pounds in deposits, more than two- thirds of which was in cash, across some 50 branches.

The deposits piled up despite the gold deal er forecasting an annual revenue of just 15 million pounds per year.

The case was prosecut ed by the UK’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, which laid out a series of lapses at local branches as well as repeated failures of overall reporting and oversight.

One manager at a cash processing centre warned a financial crime investigator that the volume of deposits was the most suspicious that he had encountered in his entire career.

NatWest kept taking in money until police finally took over the account in 2016.

“Without the bank - and without the bank’s failures - the money could not be ef fectively laundered,” Judge Sara Cockerill said.

She imposed a fine that was 15 percent higher than the 340 million pounds ini tially sought by the FCA - partly as a deterrent effect - although she reduced the total by a third because of the bank’s guilty plea.

NatWest’s Chief Exec utive Officer Alison Rose and chairperson Howard Davies sent a letter to the judge apologising for the bank’s actions.

The gold dealer was shut down after a police investigation in 2016 into what was alleged to be “an extremely sophisticated” money laundering opera tion.