Estonia detains eight in money-laundering case linked to Danske Bank - newspaper

TALLINN (Reuters) - Estonia's state prosecutor has detained eight people in connection with a money laundering case linked to Danske Bank <DANSKE.CO>, the newspaper Postimees reported on Tuesday, without naming its source.

A spokesman for the Estonian prosecutor's office declined to comment on the report. Danske Bank was not immediately available for comment.

Authorities in Denmark, Estonia, Britain and the United States are investigating payments totalling 200 billion euros ($229 billion) made through the Danish Bank's tiny Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015.

"According to information available to Postimees the state prosecutor detained eight people today on official suspicion in the so-called Danske money laundering case," the Estonian newspaper reported.

Danske Bank has acknowledged that its money-laundering controls in Estonia were insufficient, but in a report issued in September said its board, chairman and chief executive had not breached their legal obligations.

Last month, Denmark's state prosecutor filed preliminary charges against Danske Bank, the country's largest lender, for suspected violations of anti-money laundering legislation in relation to its Estonian branch.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki, additional reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen, editing by Anna Ringstrom and Gareth Jones)