The Maltese-registered Novum Bank was fined €89,156 by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) in August 2022, following an onsite compliance review that was carried out in 2019. It is unknown why FIAU waited more than three years to dish out the fine. The Malta-based bank owned by the Dutch billionaire Marcel Boekhoorn has been fined by FIAU for shortcomings in its efforts to detect potential money laundering. Novum Bank was ordered to tighten up its checks on clients.
FIAU explained that Novum Bank failed to understand the rationale behind a €16 million transfer by one of its clients. The anti-money laundering body also identified transactions ranging from €400,000 to €2 million which had not been adequately scrutinized by the bank.
According to the FIAU, Novum Bank argued that because of the limited volume of transactions which are conducted by corporate customers, it had sufficient knowledge for every single transaction which would be carried out. The bank further said that bank employees scrutinized these transactions manually, increasing the level of monitoring and understanding of corporate customer transactions.
In 2018, Dutch regulators fined the bank €1.75 million for alleged licensing issues connected to Novum’s operations in Holland. The bank had said it “strongly disagrees” with the Dutch regulator’s decision.
A year later, Marcel Boekhoorn was accused of financial crimes by prosecutors in Reggio Calabria in a case unrelated to Novum Bank. The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) greenlit a license for a gaming company owned by Boekhoorn, despite knowing of the charges he is facing in Italy. Fintelegram had revealed that MGA’s CEO Carl Brincat had referred to due diligence as a “shitshow.” The MGA’s Chief Internal Audit, James Grech, resigned recently.
The case centers on allegations that Boekhoorn and his associates used money made through a business partner’s mafia-linked criminal activities to buy an 80% stake in a casino game design company via his private equity firm Ramphastos Investments. The charges, which Boekhoorn strongly denies, are unrelated to his Malta-licensed gaming company Habanero Systems.
The FIAU has been harshly criticized for being weak with the strong and strong with the weak. The FIAU officials who dish out fines meet behind closed doors and do not declare their conflicts of interest. These include Alfred Zammit, Kenneth Farrugia, Daniella Mizzi, Elena Tabone, and Jonathan Phyall.
