The Copenhagen City Court is preparing for a major money laundering trial known as Operation Atlas, which is expected to last 14 months. The National Unit for Special Criminality (NSK) has announced that the trial will commence on January 20, 2025, and is scheduled to conclude on March 6, 2026, with the proceedings spread over 56 court days. Although formal charges have not yet been filed, the preliminary scheduling indicates that the trial is imminent.

Four individuals are facing charges in the case, suspected of defrauding approximately 2 billion Danish kroner (around $285 million). One of the defendants is currently being held in pre-trial detention. In June of last year, two men and two women appeared for a preliminary hearing at the Copenhagen City Court. One of the men was charged with particularly severe money laundering involving 560 million Danish kroner, while all four defendants plead not guilty. Since that time, the charges have been expanded, and the amount now totals around 2 billion kroner.

According to NSK, a former lawyer is charged with the total sum, while the other three are accused of varying degrees of money laundering. Money laundering involves attempts to conceal the illegal origin of funds. Part of the allegations against the former lawyer outlines how he allegedly used a company engaged in agency trading from 2018 to 2022 to launder money through accounts at Jyske Bank and Nordea, which are major banks in Denmark.

The indictment read during the preliminary hearing in 2023 accuses him and one of the co-defendant women of transferring close to 119 million kroner along with several unidentified accomplices to various companies in order to disguise the illegal origins of the funds. The preliminary hearing did not reveal the original source of the money, and it remains unclear whether the police have been able to seize any of the suspected assets.