Danske Bank to pay 6.3 million Euro fine in France in laundering probe
Denmark’s largest bank Danske Bank has agreed to pay 6.3 million euros to end legal pursuits in France linked to alleged money laundering in its Estonian subsidiary that resulted in heavy US penalties, news agency AFP reports.
The fine was agreed on August 27th with France’s national financial crime prosecutors and validated by a court Wednesday. The agreement does not involve any admission of guilt.
The bank’s Estonian unit allegedly laundering some 200 billion euros through some 15,000 accounts from 2007 to 2015, according to an independent auditor’s report published in 2018.
Danske Bank last December pleaded guilty in the United States and paid a $2 billion fine.
Hand grenade found in car travelling from Denmark to Sweden
Bomb disposal experts were called to the Øresund Bridge yesterday evening to assist Swedish authorities after customs officers discovered a hand grenade in a car travelling from Denmark to Sweden, Swedish broadcaster SVT reported.
A police spokesperson said that there was no danger to motorists.
“Where we are located is not on the bridge or near where the cars are driving,” he told SVT.
The Øresund Bridge remained open to traffic, according to the traffic status on the bridge’s website.
The incident comes at the same time as a 19-year-old Swede is on trial in Copenhagen for detonating a hand grenade at a jewellers in Frederiksberg in June this year.
Prosecutors are demanding a 5-and-a-half year prison sentence for the teenager in the case, which is the first related to this year’s spate of gang-related violence involving Swedish youths in Denmark.
A strong sentence in that case will act as a deterrent to others, the prosecution has argued.
READ ALSO: Denmark and Sweden announce joint response to gang crime escalation
SAS flight makes emergency landing in Copenhagen after discovery of mouse on board
A SAS flight en route from Oslo to Malaga made an emergency landing in Copenhagen yesterday after a mouse was found onboard.
Norwegian broadcaster NRK, which spoke to one of the passengers, reports that a mouse jumped out when a woman opened her in-flight meal.
Passengers were then informed that the rodent posed a safety risk and that the flight, in German airspace at the time, had been instructed to turn around and land in Copenhagen.
SAS head of media relations Øystein Schmidt confirmed to Norwegian newspaper Fædrelandsvennen that a mouse had been found during the flight.
Schmidt stated that it is standard procedure for a plane to land if pests are found onboard, as the aircraft needs to be inspected.
The passengers from Oslo eventually arrived in Malaga about two and a half hours late, according to NRK.
Danish incomes rise faster than any time in the last 30 years
The average income earned in Denmark shot up by 6.3 percent in 2023, the largest annual rise in earnings recorded since the early 1990s.
The average pre-tax income in Denmark rose to 395,500 kroner in 2023, a 6.3 percent rise on the average in 2022, and the highest year-on-year percentage rise in real incomes seen in the country in 30 years.
The sharp rise was driven primarily by income from investments, with shares and funds which performed poorly in 2022 bouncing back strongly in 2023, leading to a near-doubling in the earnings booked by many Danes.
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