Coutts - which describes itself as “inclusive” and “culturally aware” - has previously managed the cash of dictators, mafia bosses, and Russian oligarchs.
Pinochet
The former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet held an account with the US branch of Coutts among other banks, hiding $15 million (£7.8 million) in total across financial institutions. A US Senate subcommittee revealed in 2005 that the despot, responsible for the executions and forced disappearances of more than 3,000 people, had invested with Coutts & Co in Miami.
Mafia leader Emilio Di Giovine laundered nearly £2 million of cash through his Coutts account, according to the Guardian in 1999. The notorious boss of the Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s wealthiest crime syndicates, served eight years in jail in the1990s.
Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian president, and his sons were also clients within the same branch, The Guardian reported in 2016. Mubarak oversaw “systematic” violations of human rights by the security services in Egypt, according to Amnesty International, and was sentenced to a three-year prison term for embezzlement of public funds in 2014.
Russian money laundering with links to the Russian government and KGB was processed through UK banks including Coutts, totalling nearly $740 million, The Guardian claimed in 2017.
It claimed around 500 people were involved including oligarchs, Moscow bankers and figures connected to the FSB.
And there are plenty more. Hypocrisy, - thy name is Coutts.