Deutsche Bank suspected of crimes

This 29 November 2018 video about Germany says about itself:

Deutsche Bank Headquarters Searched as Part of Panama Papers Probe

Deutsche Bank AG‘s headquarters in Frankfurt were searched Thursday by prosecutors in relation to a money laundering probe. Bloomberg’s Jan-Patrick Barnert reports on “Bloomberg Surveillance.”

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Police and judiciary have raided the Deutsche Bank head office in Frankfurt. At least two employees are suspected of having helped customers to launder money from criminal activities. The men aged 50 and 46 were arrested and another arrest was said to being made, but it is not known who that is.

Many police cars can be seen in front of the main office in Frankfurt. Also at five other offices of the bank in Frankfurt there are raids. About 170 police officers, employees of the Public Prosecution Service and the tax authorities are involved.

The money laundering investigation has to do with the Panama Papers, says correspondent Kees van Dam. These are secret documents from the Panamanian company Mossack Fonseca which ended up on the streets a few years ago. According to the German judiciary, it shows that Deutsche Bank helped customers to open questionable accounts in tax havens.

Eg, in 2016, a division of the bank with headquarters in the British Virgin Islands is said to have illegally earmarked money from Germany for 900 customers. It would amount to a total of 311 million euros. Dodging and circumventing taxes is illegal and the bank should have intervened, but that did not happen.

Not the first time

According to witnesses, the German justice department has seized a large amount of documents and also laptops and computers. Deutsche Bank says in a statement that it cooperates fully, but the case is extremely painful.

Because it is not the first time that the bank is discredited, says Kees van Dam. “Very strict rules have been put in place: money laundering or cash flows that point to terrorist plans must be reported, and apparently internal controls will not work properly.”

It is not clear whether only the two or three employees knew about the money laundering activities or that bosses were also aware. In the German press there are speculations that the case is much bigger. It may be a multibillion case involving banks from Denmark and the USA.

COPS RAID DEUTSCHE BANK Some 170 police officers, investigators and prosecutors raided the German offices of Deutsche Bank on the suspicion bank employees helped clients set up offshore companies in tax havens to launder hundreds of millions of euros. The investigation emerged from an analysis of documents leaked from tax havens in recent years, including the 2016 “Panama Papers.” [AP]

On Friday, the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office conducted a second raid on Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche Bank. The spokesperson for the investigating authority, Nadja Niesen, said that due to the extent of material, an additional search of the bank’s offices was necessary: here.

The German government is pushing for the combination of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank to establish a financial behemoth capable of competing with the US and China: here.