THREE Future Bank officials have been sentenced to five years in prison and fined BD1 million each, in the latest of a series of money laundering cases.
Four Iranian state-owned banks have also been fined BD1m each by the High Criminal Court, which convicted them of laundering.
“The total fines imposed on the banks and Future Bank officials in six cases have now reached BD42m,” General Advocate Nayef Mahmood said in an official statement yesterday.
“The court also ordered the confiscation of the illegally transferred money that reached $22m.”
The banks implicated in the scandal are Future Bank, Bank Saderat, Bank Melli and Bank Saderat Doha branch.
“The Public Prosecution had previously announced that its investigations revealed that the Central Bank of Iran had planned to launder billions of dollars through the Future Bank, that was set up in Bahrain,” he said.
It was controlled by two Iranian banks – Bank Melli Iran and Bank Saderat Iran – with an aim to facilitate dubious transactions in favour of Iranian entities, in violation of laws and regulations.
“The Future Bank received requests for suspicious financial transfers in favour of the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks through the ‘SWIFT’ system – and it was carried out without reporting them or checking their legitimacy in an effort to conceal the identity of the Iranian bank.”
The official said the bank made the transfers in violation of laws and regulations.
Investigations are still ongoing in the rest of the cases which include money laundering, financing terrorism and violating international banking laws and regulations, he added.
The GDN previously reported that the defendants, who are still at large, were senior officials at Future Bank, which was closed down in Bahrain in 2016 for laundering a combined $7.4 billion and issuing trade finance guarantees worth BD1.5bn.
A 2018 assessment of Future Bank’s operations by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) found it and its controlling stakeholders had engaged in systematic and large-scale violations of Bahrain’s banking laws.
Subsequent interviews with Future bank employees and a review of tens of thousands of Future Bank documents were undertaken by the CBB, the Interior Ministry’s financial investigation unit, and independent international regulatory experts and forensic analysts.
The GDN reported in April 2018 that Interior Minister General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa said that Future Bank had to be placed under administration in 2015 for violating banking laws.
He said investigation had revealed that the bank was involved in laundering $4.7bn through ‘wire stripping’ SWIFT messages, laundering $2.7bn through an old method of inter-bank messaging, issuing letters of credit and trade finance guarantees worth $1.5bn, and disbursing funds through illegal means in Bahrain to strengthen Iranian influence in the country.
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