The High Criminal Court in Bahrain issued convictions in 3 cases related to money laundering in the case of the Future Bank and 5 of its officials, in conjunction with a number of Iranian banks.
The court ruled guilty of all the defendants, and punished the officials of the Future Bank with five years in prison and fined them each one million dinars, according to what was reported in the Bahrain News Agency.
The court also decided to fine the involved banks one million dinars each, along with confiscating the sums of money transfers, the subject of the crime.
The head of the Financial Crimes and Money Laundering Prosecution said that the total imposed fines amounted to twenty-four million dinars, in addition to the confiscation of remittance sums amounting to forty three million dollars.
The Public Prosecution had previously announced that its investigations had uncovered a scheme that enabled various Iranian entities, including those involved in financing terrorism or subject to international sanctions, to implement international transactions while avoiding regulatory scrutiny, as it was found that the Future Bank, which operates under the supervision of the National Bank of Iran (Melli) and Bank Iran’s exports pass through thousands of international financial transactions while providing cover for Iranian entities in them, through the deliberate concealment and removal of basic information when transferring funds through the SWIFT network.
The Head of the Financial Crimes and Money Laundering Prosecution said that investigations are still ongoing regarding the rest of the incidents, which included the exploitation of a number of Iranian banks in the implementation of international transactions in violation of the Law on Prohibition and Combating Money Laundering and Combating Terrorism Financing and banking laws and regulations, and that the total judgments issued in the related cases To date, the Bank of the Future has fined 354 million dinars for all of the defendants with confiscation of transfers, about 366 million dollars, in addition to custodial penalties.
January 1, 2021, published on aawsat (Arabic)
