London, Dec 12 (Reuters) – British investigators have frozen a bank account linked to a multi-billion dollar Azerbaijani money-laundering scheme that a network of investigative reporters has alleged rinsed dirty money mainly through four, UK-registered shell companies.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Wednesday that the Account Freezing Order (AFO), part of a new toolbox to allow investigators to freeze suspected proceeds of crime quickly, was the first “in relation to the Azerbaijani Laundromat”.
The NCA declined to give further details or divulge whether the frozen account was also linked to Danske Bank, the Copenhagen-based lender at the centre of a 200-billion-euro ($227 billion) money laundering scandal.
The “Azerbaijani Laundromat” is a term coined last year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a network of investigative journalists, after an investigation with Denmark’s Berlinske newspaper and others.
Further details and Source: Reuters