Reported by Ortenca Aliaj and Owen Walker

Former Swedbank chief executive Birgitte Bonnesen is facing 15 months in prison after a Swedish appeals court convicted her of spreading misleading information about the bank’s money laundering problems in Estonia. 

Bonnesen, who led Sweden’s oldest bank from 2016 until she was fired by its board in 2019, was convicted of “gross swindling” by the Svea Court of Appeal, making her the highest-ranking Swedish banker to go to jail over the scandal. 

“The court has assessed several statements that the CEO has made to the press and equity analysts,” the court said in a statement on Tuesday. 

“The court has con­cluded that two of the statements have been incorrect or mis­repre­sented facts in a way that they have been misleading in the sense of the Swedish Criminal Code.”

The conviction relates to one of Europe’s biggest money-laundering scandals. Both Swedbank and Denmark’s Danske Bank were alleged to have been part of a system that allowed Russian oligarchs and criminals to move money through their Baltic branches and into the western financial system.

Read full report: https://www.ft.com/content/16d9a293-2963-4af7-b9e5-be0920fa6782