As reported by FinTelegram, The Financial Times reported that German prosecutors suspect that more than €100M was stolen from Wirecard via the licensed Lithuanian e-Money Institution (EMI) Finolita Unio. Via this fintech, at least €35M was said to have flowed to fugitive ex-Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek and another €65M to the now insolvent company oCap in Singapore. Today, the Bank of Lithuania announced that the license of Finolita Unio had been revoked for violations of money laundering rules.
Finolita Unio failed to assess money laundering and terrorist financing risks of its customers, acted with negligence when establishing and checking identity of its customers and beneficial owners, failed to identify the nature of activities of legal entities, improperly monitored business relationships and operations of customers and failed to comply with the requirements related to the implementation of international financial sanctions and enforcement measures.
Bank of Lithuania (Source: press release 8 June 2021
In addition, Finolita Unio has also worked as a scam facilitator, processing deposits from victims of various scams via the Estonian crypto exchange Woodstocks OÜ d/b/a Coinmond (www.coinmond.com), for example. Woodstocks used its bank account at Finolita Unio to process victims’ deposits of the scams of the Trade Com Racket (read the report here). Therefore, the revocation of Finolita Unio’s license was a consistent and correct step by the Bank of Lithuania. Bravo.
Stay tuned for more news and analysis!
