Chile Reopens Bank Secrecy Fight After $85 Million Tren de Aragua Probe

1 articles · Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 8

A June arrest of a Santander Chile employee accused of ties to Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua has reignited pressure to loosen some of Chile’s strict bank-secrecy protections.
Prosecutors say the employee was central to an $85 million money-laundering network that routed funds through accounts at nearly every major bank in Chile and went undetected for years.
Police said the investigation is not centered on any one bank, even though the suspect worked at Santander Chile, a unit of Spain’s Banco Santander.
The case has sharpened scrutiny of whether Chile’s secrecy rules are hindering efforts to detect and disrupt organized-crime financing.