Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath

by Bill Browder

Eva and Michael had written more than 70 articles on Danske Bank. These covered a range of suspicious payments across multiple schemes involving disparate characters like Azerbaijan’s most senior leaders, corrupt Western European politicians, a Russian arms dealer, sanctioned Iranian companies, and even a cousin of Putin’s, among others. Their reporting forced Danske Bank to act. In the fall of 2017, the bank’s CEO, Thomas Borgen, announced a top-to-bottom audit, to be conducted by external lawyers and accountants. The findings of this audit had still not been made public by the time we were going to meet with Eva and Michael. We wanted to see them because we’d made some dramatic discoveries of our own regarding Danske Bank. Using data from the French investigation, the Moldovan file, and other sources, Vadim had identified 43,112 transactions showing that $200 million connected to the $230 million had been laundered through 20 shell companies with accounts at Danske Bank’s lone Estonian branch, in Tallinn.