ANGLO IRISH BANK

The headlines just seem to get worse and worse for the taxpayer-owned bank. The latest lurid story involves an alleged €2bn, Mafia money-laundering scheme.The Sunday Independent story centres on an Austrian bank which Anglo sold in 2008. Italian prosecutors have highlighted suspicious transactions from a telecoms firm in Italy to 12 bank accounts in Vienna, some of which were operated by the Anglo subsidiary Anglo Irish Bank (Austria).

“The alleged money laundering was conducted by a company purporting to lease bundled broadband services that they said they had bought from a number of suppliers,” the newspaper states, quoting ‘a number of sources’.

It is little wonder the same article by Nick Webb and Shane Ross also reports the government has decided to rebrand the bank because of the drip-feed of bad publicity the financial institution is receiving.

Separately, The Sunday Times reports the bank’s former chairman and chief executive Sean Fitzpatrick lost €16m in shares he held in rival banks and he will disclose this week his inability to repay €50m to other creditors.

A statement of affairs shows he lost €10m in Bank of Ireland and €6m in AIB. However, he racked up his most spectacular losses in Anglo itself: his 5m shares were worth around €80m at their peak but are now worthless.