STOCKHOLM/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Loomis AB said it would investigate allegations it played a role in a Danish money laundering scandal, the Swedish cash-handling company said on Thursday.

At its annual general meeting a day earlier a journalist from Denmark’s TV2 alleged that Loomis was implicated because it had cooperated with a foreign exchange bureau, company CEO Patrik Andersson told Reuters.

Loomis has not been contacted by regulatory authorities and its previous internal checks turned up no evidence to indicate that it had been part of systematic money laundering, he added.

The Danish authorities convicted the owners of several exchange agencies in Copenhagen in 2016 for having helped criminal networks launder million of dollars of suspicious funds by using 500-euro banknotes. Loomis had not previously been linked to the case.

Companies in Scandinavia are under scrutiny for their anti-money laundering policies after Danish lender Danske Bank became embroiled in a scandal over suspicious transactions channeled via its branch in Estonia.

Shares in Loomis, which was trading ex dividend on Thursday, were down 8.7 percent at 315 Swedish crowns at 1240 GMT. The dividend payment was 10 Swedish crowns.

Andersson said the journalist did not provide any documentation or proof to support but added that Loomis had begun work to hire an external agency to carry out an independent inquiry and would update the market in due course.

“From what I know, there is nothing,” Andersson said in response to a question about where any checks had indicated that Loomis had participated in systematic money laundering.

“But... we take these allegations very serious... What we’ve done is immediately started to look into the matter.”