Latvia's banking sector rocked by central bank chief's detention

Latvia's third-biggest bank sought emergency financial support on Monday after US officials accused it of helping breach North Korean sanctions, hours after the central bank governor was arrested over separate bribery allegations.
The financial sector in Latvia, a small eurozone state that shares a border with Russia, has come under wider scrutiny for being a conduit for illicit financial activities.
ABLV Bank was ordered by the European Central Bank to stop all payments as its liquidity position had deteriorated sharply since the US Treasury accused it of allowing clients to conduct business with North Korea.
The Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FCEN) said bank executives and management had bribed Latvian officials to cover up their activities.
"ABLV has institutionalised money laundering as a pillar of the bank's business practices," the FCEN said in a statement linking some of the alleged activities to North Korea's ballistic missiles programme.
The bank has said the US accusations were based on unfounded and misleading information.
The Latvian central bank said it had agreed to provide "97.5 million worth of funding to ABLV but the bank had yet to receive the...

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