Turkey's Aktif Bank helped the porn industry, engaged in money laundering: FinCEN Files

Duvar English

Turkey's Aktif Bank is suspected of having carried out money laundering on a grand scale for a customer network that includes the scandal-ridden German financial service provider Wirecard and shady figures from the porn industry, according to the FinCEN Files.

Turkish companies and banks pop up frequently and prominently in the FinCEN Files, a collection of secret documents from the US Department of the Treasury that was leaked to BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The files from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a regulatory unit of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, provide insight into suspicious money transactions.

Among the businesses included in the documents, Aktif Yatırım Bankası, or Aktif Bank, stands out, Deutsche Welle reported.

Aktif Bank is part of Çalık Holding, one of the largest groups in Turkey, to which more than 30 companies belong. Çalık, in turn, has close ties with the Turkish government.

'Suspicious transactions' carried out under Albayrak

A number of "suspicious transactions" included in the FinCEN Files were made while Berat Albayrak was CEO of Çalık Holding. Albayrak is the son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and is currently Turkey's Finance Minister.

The incriminating evidence against Aktif comes from Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). These are records banks themselves file with FinCEN when they suspect possible violations of financial regulations.

Financial institutions conducting business in the U.S., such as Aktif Bank, are required to submit SARs. SARs reflect the concerns of compliance officers in financial institutions and do not necessarily prove criminal activity or other misconduct.

Some 400 journalists from 88 countries spent 16 months scrutinizing the leaked FinCEN documents. The result: a view into the previously murky paths of international financial transactions. The ICIJ investigation suggests that with the help of Aktif Bank, dirty money was also pumped back into the market.

The FinCEN files contain warning messages from the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) and Bank of America (BoA), both of which were or are active as correspondent banks for Aktif's international business.

Transactions worth some $91.6 million

According to the FinCEN Files, between June 6, 2013, and July 1, 2014, Aktif Bank processed suspicious transactions worth some $91.6 million through its partners in the United States.

Moreover, the documents shed light on the Turkish bank's dubious customer network, including providers of pornography and a company that is suspected of having business relationships with the radical Islamic Taliban.

Lately, one name on Aktif's client list has been making a lot of headlines. Germany's Wirecard Bank AG, which is currently involved in a multi-million-dollar fraud scandal, was among the clients Aktif Bank referred to its correspondent bank BNY Mellon. But the New York creditor flagged Wirecard Bank transactions as "high-risk" and froze its accounts.

That didn't stop Aktif Bank from helping Wirecard. The FinCEN Files indicate that Aktif transferred the money to BNY Mellon under an undisclosed name. According to the U.S. bank, Wirecard made as many as 12 "suspicious transactions" worth more than $110,000 through its Aktif Bank account between May and July of 2014.

Afghanistan links

Wirecard conducted a good deal of business with customers from the pornography and gambling industries. According to information contained in the FinCEN Files, Aktif Bank facilitated much of that business. As early as December 2013, BNY Mellon reported "suspicious transfers" with a volume of around $17.5 million. Most of these came from big names in the adult industry, including MindGeek, owners of Pornhub and Youporn. Until 2013, MindGeek was known as Manwin and is recorded as Manwin in the documents.

The names of Aktif Bank customers with links to Afghanistan appears equally as perplexing. Between May 27 and July 1, 2014, Aktif Bank orchestrated exactly 561 "suspicious" money transfers worth $35.3 million (€29.8 million) from Afghan accounts. With no public information available on the companies or their actual business, the Afghan entities were suspected of being shell companies, which suggests money laundering.

Aktif Bank's list of Afghan customers doesn't end there. The New Kabul Bank — a financial institution that was mired in a billion-dollar corruption scandal in 2010 before it reinvented itself a year later under its current name — also maintains a customer account. Corruption is rampant in desperately poor Afghanistan and BNY Mellon marked several New Kabul Bank transactions forwarded by Aktif Bank as "suspicious."

Bank of America (BoA) also filed a Suspicious Activity Report to the U.S. Department of the Treasury with regards to Aktif Bank's Afghanistan connection. In this case, it was conspicuous transactions that the Turkish bank initiated on behalf of the Afghan company Watan Oil and Gas.

Taliban relations

Particularly questionable are money transfers of $3.6 million between June 2013 and March 2014. According to the US bank's own statements, which are documented in the FinCEN Files, BoA has since ceased its activities as a correspondent bank for Aktif Bank because the Watan Group is accused by the U.S. government of maintaining relations with the radical Islamic Taliban.

The U.S. government blacklisted the Watan Group after its own investigations into the Afghan subsidiary Watan Risk Assessment. The investigation revealed that the Watan subsidiary had paid the Taliban several million dollars in return for protecting their convoys. Sanctions against the Taliban have been in place since the terrorist attacks of September 11. All of this happened at a time when U.S. troops were still actively fighting the Taliban.

BoA itself noted in a SAR that the bank's payment surveillance team detected potentially unusual transfers of mostly large rounded dollar amounts. They were sent from a customer of Aktif Bank on behalf of Watan Gas and Oil and processed through several banks.

The BoA wrote verbatim in its SAR: "The wires sent from Watan Gas via Aktif Bank remitted to two Latvian banks in Riga and the business entities receiving funds seem to be shell companies located in British Virgin Islands and Hong Kong."

According to the U.S. bank's own assessment: "There is a geographic disconnect with banks in Latvia and beneficiaries. Afghanistan, Turkey and Latvia are considered high-risk countries vulnerable to money laundering and other illegal activities."

Aktif Bank denies allegations

Aktif Bank has said it does not intend to directly comment on the FinCEN Files. It did, however, say that filing a SAR alone does not necessarily mean the transactions in question were prohibited or illegal. The bank pointed out that it operates according to the guidelines put in place by MASAK, Turkey's financial crimes investigator.

Furthermore, Aktif Bank says it is required to know exactly who its customers are and whether they have ever been on national or international sanctions lists, or whether financial institutions, for instance, had ever been involved in money laundering or terror financing in the past.

Aktif Bank says it undergoes annual performance reviews by its correspondent banking partners and that it does not conduct transactions for the purpose of money laundering. The bank also said that its core values prohibit it from doing business with companies from the pornography or gambling industries.