Thousands of suspected cases have accumulated at the FIU.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf The head of the federal money laundering authority is resigning from his post. Christof Schulte, who heads the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), has asked to be released from his position for “personal reasons”. This emerges from a letter from the Federal Ministry of Finance to the Finance Committee of the Bundestag. The letter is available to the Handelsblatt.
The ministry will comply with this request, the document said. Effective immediately, Schulte will take on a new role in Directorate V (General Customs Law) of the General Customs Directorate. The search for a successor will be pursued “with high priority”.
Schulte’s deputy Tilman Peters is now taking over the position of FIU head on an interim basis. The previous head of department is a “recognized administrative specialist in the areas of organization, human resources and budget,” the letter says. Peters should “continue to accompany and advance the transformation process that has started at the FIU”.
Criticism of the FIU: Too slow, too many errors
The FIU is the national central office for the evaluation of financial transactions that could be related to money laundering or terrorist financing. In 2017 she moved from the area of responsibility of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Ministry of the Interior to customs and thus under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance.
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Since then, criticism of the FIU has not stopped. Many experts complained that the agency was too slow, not well equipped and made too many mistakes. In fact, thousands of suspicious cases have accumulated on the desks of anti-money laundering fighters.
Schulte started in August 2018 to clean up the mess. But the FIU never got out of the headlines. It became known that the authority in the scandal surrounding the payment service provider and former Dax group Wirecard did not forward around 700 suspicious reports totaling 180 million euros. Schulte’s reasoning: his authority had no evidence of criminal behavior in Germany. The FIU is not responsible for money laundering abroad.
Money Laundering Paradise
300,000
suspicious activity reports
were received by the Anti-Money Laundering Unit FIU in 2021.
Just recently, the “Wirtschaftswoche” reported on the response of the Federal Ministry of Finance to a written request from the CDU finance expert Matthias Hauer. According to this, the FIU of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) did not report tens of thousands of cases like the one in the Wirecard case. The international organization FATF monitors compliance with anti-money laundering measures – including in Germany.
The CDU politician Hauer now accuses the FIU and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner of secrecy. The authority “hidden the conditions of the massive processing backlog from the Bundestag and the public for a long time”. The legal supervision of the Ministry of Finance has also failed here. However, the problems of the FIU are “not only in the management”, says Hauer, they have to be “structurally solved”.
Criticism also comes from the non-governmental organization Finanzwende. “A fresh start at the authority, which has to go well beyond the staff, is overdue,” says Konrad Duffy from the citizens’ movement. It is now important to seize the opportunity and tackle the “never-ending series of problems”.
“Money Laundering Paradise” Germany
The financial policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Markus Herbrand, accuses Schulte of having “apparently little interest in clarification and transparency”. He calls for “in addition to sufficient staff and the right IT equipment, additional access rights” for the FIU. This is intended to prevent “the tracing and fixing of criminal funds from failing due to the jungle of responsibilities in the federal states”.
For years, Germany has been considered a “money laundering paradise” where, according to an estimate by the University of Halle-Wittenberg, 100 billion euros are laundered every year. Other studies come up with a low amount. However, experts agree that the current situation does not meet Germany’s requirements.
The FATF also confirmed deficits in its August audit report. It is not clear whether Germany’s commitment against money laundering “has fully produced results at the operational level.” The total number of money laundering cases that are prosecuted is lower than expected and does not correspond to “the risk profile” of the Federal Republic.
In its annual report in September, the FIU reported a record number of almost 300,000 suspected money laundering reports for 2021. A year earlier it had been about half. Schulte had taken this as confirmation of his course.
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