Standard Chartered PLC (LSE: STAN) has been accused of facilitating billions of dollars worth of transactions linked to US-designated terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda.
In newly filed court documents, Julian Knight, a former Standard Chartered banker turned whistleblower, accused US authorities of either overlooking or concealing evidence of the illegal transactions allegedly conducted in the mid-2000s.
According to a report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Knight has claimed that US authorities falsely denied he had provided “damning evidence” that the bank “facilitated many billions of dollars in banking transactions for Iran, numerous international terror groups, and front companies for those groups.”
In 2012, Standard Chartered agreed to forfeit $227 million to the Justice Department for conducting transactions with sanctioned entities in Iran, Sudan, Libya, and Burma.
In 2019, Standard Chartered admitted to illegally processing transactions in violation of Iranian sanctions and agreed to pay more than $1 billion in fines.
Knight asserts that Standard Chartered conducted significantly more transfers than the bank admitted at the time. He has asked the US Federal Court in New York to reinstate his claims, alleging that more than half a million separate transactions between 2008 and 2013 were “cloaked.”
In response to the BBC, Standard Chartered stated it was “confident the courts will reject these claims,” noting that US authorities had previously concluded the whistleblower’s claims were “meritless.”
