Deutsche Bank’s Bill for Russia Trades Reaches $629 Million
- Control failures allowed $10 billion to move out of Russia
- Fine relates to bank’s use of mirror trades to change currency
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Deutsche Bank AG was fined $629 million by U.K. and U.S. authorities for compliance failures that saw the bank help wealthy Russians move about $10 billion out of the country using transactions that were likely thinly veiled attempts to cover up financial crime.
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority issued a 163 million-pound ($204 million) fine Tuesday, hours after New York’s Department of Financial Services fined the bank $425 million, for failures over the so-called "mirror-trades." A criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department is ongoing into the trades, which were used to convert rubles into dollars and transfer the money out of Russia.