The Guardian approached 17 banks that are either based in the UK or have a presence here – and are therefore obliged to have strict anti-money-laundering procedures. They are also supposed to reject or flag any transactions that are a cause for concern.

We asked the banks three broad questions:

1 Given the longstanding and publicly rehearsed concerns about money laundering through Moldova and Latvia, what steps has your bank taken to ensure that it has not been in receipt of so-called “dirty” money from transactions emanating from these countries?

2 Did your bank’s internal anti-money-laundering processes “red flag” these transactions?

3 Are you cooperating with, or have you ever cooperated with, the Moldovan inquiry into the “Global Laundromat”?

We received these replies:

HSBC

Royal Bank of Scotland/Coutts/NatWest

Lloyds/Bank of Scotland

Barclays

UBS

Santander

Société Générale

Standard Chartered

BNP Paribus/Fortis

ING

Citibank

Bank of America declined to comment.