FAMILIES OF AMERICANS KILLED AND INJURED BY AL-QAEDA AND TALIBAN TERRORISTS, INCLUDING 115 GOLD STAR FAMILIES, SUE DEUTSCHE BANK, STANDARD CHARTERED BANK, DANSKE BANK, AND TWO MONEY REMITTERS FOR FINANCING THE ATTACKS

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Feb 16, 2022, 17:49 ET

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday, hundreds of Americans amended their Anti-Terrorism Act lawsuit against Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Danske Bank, Wall Street Exchange, and Placid Express, which stand accused of supporting a campaign of terrorism in Afghanistan led by al-Qaeda and carried out by the Taliban.

Plaintiffs' amended complaint, in Wildman, et al. v. Deutsche Bank AG, et al., Case 1:21-cv-04400 (E.D.N.Y.), followed a multi-year investigation by the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Sparacino PLLC and came less than six weeks after Sparacino PLLC helped secure a comprehensive Anti-Terrorism Act victory in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit against Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, GE Healthcare, AstraZeneca, and Roche, on behalf of more than 1,200 Americans, in Atchley et al. v. AstraZeneca UK Ltd., et al., Case 1:17-cv-02136 (D.D.C.); Sparacino serves as lead investigative counsel in both cases and followed the same investigative method and complaint-drafting approach in each.

In the Wildman amended complaint, filed yesterday, 487 Americans, including 115 Gold Star families and dozens of severely injured veterans, accuse Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Danske Bank, Placid Express, and Wall Street Exchange of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act by knowingly financing al-Qaeda and its affiliates from 2001 through 2016.

After 9/11, Osama bin Laden organized al-Qaeda's long-standing affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan into an anti-American jihadist alliance that was dedicated to killing Americans in Afghanistan. Through what the U.S. government described as al-Qaeda's "Syndicate" of terrorism, al-Qaeda planned, authorized, and often jointly committed attacks throughout Afghanistan alongside its allies the Taliban, including the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-E-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and D-Company.

As alleged in the Amended Complaint, Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Danske Bank, Placid Express, and Wall Street Exchange aided these terrorists by knowingly serving them as what people in the financial industry call a "Laundromat": a bank or money remitter that operates as a criminal enterprise by knowingly profiting from transactions that help terrorists.

As alleged, each defendant pursued longstanding "Laundromat" schemes to maximize profits by knowingly helping al-Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, and their allies raise, manage, secure, transfer, and deploy their illicit money. The allegations in the Complaint show that these schemes violated U.S. law and collectively caused hundreds of millions of U.S. Dollars to flow from American financial institutions to al-Qaeda and its allies from 2001 through 2016.

The plaintiffs are Americans who were severely physically injured, or whose loved ones were killed or severely physically injured, in Afghanistan by terrorist attacks from 2011 through 2016 that were planned, authorized, and often jointly committed, by al-Qaeda in alliance with its long-standing affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the Taliban and its Haqqani Network.

As it did in the Atchley case, Sparacino PLLC's attorneys and investigators exhaustively reviewed the facts prior to filing the complaint, continued investigating thereafter, and obtained nonpublic data that confirmed the core allegation—a full copy of a confidential "final" investigative summary memorandum prepared by an elite western law enforcement agency that memorialized, among other things, how one or more member of a key fundraising cell at issue "generally confessed" to the scheme and "cooperat[ed] with the investigation."

"As alleged, Deutsche Bank knowingly aided violent terrorist sociopaths known to target Americans," said Mr. Sparacino, "and, until 2017, Deutsche Bank made a choice to institutionally profit by aiding terroristic violence and did not care if its customers were known to rape girls for sport (as Jeffrey Epstein did while Deutsche served him), coerce enslaved boys to fight and kill Christians and Jews (as Iran did while Deutsche served its terror fronts), or kill and maim thousands of American, British, and German servicemembers and civilians (as al-Qaeda did while Deutsche laundered its money), as long as Deutsche's profits kept pouring in."

"For decades, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank have acted as if they were above the law. In the United States, however, no one is above the law, and Plaintiffs will do everything they can to hold Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank accountable," said Mr. Sparacino.

"But this case is about much more than Deutsche and Standard Chartered. Given the unprecedented nature, and breadth, of the terrorist finance schemes alleged in Wildman, this case is the most important Anti-Terrorism Act lawsuit ever filed against any bank, and the world can assume that Plaintiffs will be served by an expanded legal team that is led by an elite American law firm widely known as one of the preeminent trial powerhouses in the United States befitting the stakes of this case for the Americans in it who lost so much," said Mr. Sparacino.

Plaintiffs' case is captioned Wildman, et al. v. Deutsche Bank AG, et al., Case 1:21-cv-04400 (E.D.N.Y. Compl. Filed Aug. 5, 2021). The full Amended Complaint is available https://afghanistan.terrorismcase.com/afghanistan-documents/wildman-amended-complaint/.

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SOURCE Sparacino PLLC