Could they perhaps have sent negative confirmations to the banks with the balances? IIRC that’s an acceptable process for verifying balances - though it’s typic

Could they perhaps have sent negative confirmations to the banks with the balances? IIRC that’s an acceptable process for verifying balances - though it’s typically used to confirm much smaller account balances. I’ve really only seen it used in bank audits where it’s sent to a sample of retail customers. But a negative confirm would be a way to “verify” for audit purposes without actually verifying. I’m not sure what would be worse though, using a negative confirmation for billions of dollars or sending no confirmations at all.