In August 2014, ING transferred 45 million dollars to a Russian state-owned bank that was just on an American sanctions list.
Journalists write that Research in Faithful, in a new publication on the FinCEN Files: 2600 documents leaked to news site Buzzfeed, which she shared with journalist platform ICIJ.
That Russian bank, Vnesheconombank, was on the sanction list because Russia had previously annexed Crimea in 2014.
Two tries
ING tried to make the payment for the first time on August 7, 2014, the journalists write. But Bank of America, which handles dollar transactions for ING, declined to make the payment due to the sanctions.
A week later, ING tried again, without mentioning the name of the subsidiary of Vnesheconombank. It was no longer possible to see where the money came from or where it was going. A few months later, Bank of America reported the transaction to US authorities, adding, “This appears to be an attempt to evade sanctions.”
Whether the transaction actually fell under the US sanctions is not certain, according to Investico. “Not all payments to the Russian state-owned company are prohibited. But Bank of America investigated the payment and the underlying invoices, and then decided to decline the payment.”
ING said in a response to Trouw and Investico that it will not make any statements about individual customers or transactions. NOS has not yet received an answer to a request for a response.
619 million fine
ING had to pay $ 619 million in a settlement with US authorities two years earlier because the bank had failed to comply with sanctions against another country: Cuba.
Until 2007, ING did business with communist Cuba through subsidiary Netherlands Caribbean Bank.
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