DLA Piper’s independent review examining Euro Pacific Bank's compliance with AML and KYC standards, focusing on accounts linked to specific individuals amid regulatory allegations.

Independent Report on Euro Pacific Bank’s Compliance Practices

Following the false allegations made by 60 Minutes Australia, the Age and the N.Y. Times, the bank hired DL Piper in Australia to review the bank’s compliance with respect to the two criminals featured in the defamatory 60 Minutes Broadcast, who allegedly used their Euro Pacific Bank accounts to commit their crimes. Simon Anquetil convicted of perpetrating on of Australia’s largest tax frauds, and Darby Angel, a convicted drug-trafficker.

The report not only showed that the bank did extensive and proper due diligence on both, but verified the strength of the bank’s AML and KYC compliance. Simon Anquetil’s account was frozen by the bank’s compliance department years before he had his criminal record, and it rejected every income wiring from Plutus Payroll, the company that actually committed the tax fraud. It turned out that Darby Angel’s only drug trafficking conviction was a suspended sentence for a minor offense, that was committed more than twenty years before his account application was submitted. The record had been scrubbed from the internet under Australian law, so it did not come up during the bank’s vetting process. Also, the account was never funded, so it was never even used by Angel for any purpose, let alone to launder drug money.

It’s likely the government source who illegally leaked information on these two accounts didn’t leak all the details that would have exonerated the bank. But even when I pointed out the truth to the reporters after the fact, they did not care. They wanted to pretend the bank was guilty no matter how innocent the evidence they had proved it was.