The organization involved in the Paradise Papers leak allegedly represented a bank accused of funding terrorism, report says

The
offices of Bermuda-based law firm Appleby are pictured on
November 8, 2017 in Douglas, Isle of Man.
Matt Cardy/Getty Images

• 
  Appleby, the firm at the center of last year's massive
  Paradise Papers leak, allegedly provided services to a bank
  accused of facilitating global terror and crime, according to a
  Guardian report.
  


• 
  Appleby had represented the Federal Bank of the Middle
  East (FBME) since 2004, the report said.
  


• 
  FBME was described as “a financial institution of
  primary money laundering concern" according to US federal court
  documents filed in October 2017.
  


• 
  The bank denies the allegations.
  

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Appleby, the firm at the center of last year's massive Paradise
Papers leak allegedly provided services to a bank accused of
facilitating global terror and crime,
the Guardian reported on Tuesday.

Appleby had allegedly represented the international Federal Bank
of the Middle East (FBME) since 2004, according to the report.

The US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FinCEN) leveled several
major allegations against FBME, calling it a "primary money
laundering concern," according to US federal court documents
filed in October 2017.

A 2014 note
published by FinCEN in the US Federal Register went further
in its description of FBME's alleged activities:

“FBME is used by its customers to facilitate money laundering,
terrorist financing, transnational organised crime, fraud,
sanctions evasion and other illicit activity internationally and
through the US financial system,” the note said.

Additionally,
the 2014 note alleged that at least one of FBME's customers
was a front-company for the group, Scientific Studies and
Research Center, an entity that was
sanctioned by the US and was determined to be a "proliferator
of weapons of mass destruction," according to the note.

FBME has vehemently denied
the allegations. A spokesperson for the institution said: "The
outrageous claims that FBME acted for terrorists, or knowingly
acted for any sanctioned individuals, are false and deliberately
damaging."

"Any client that was sanctioned had their accounts frozen
immediately and were reported to the regulator," the bank said.

Appleby ended its relationship with FBME in 2015,
according to federal court documents.

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