What role does the former SPD member of the Bundestag play in cum-ex deals?
(Photo: imago images/Metodi Popow)
This find raises questions: 214,800 euros in cash are said to have been in a safe deposit box belonging to the former SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs. This is how the “Bild” newspaper reports.
At the request of the Handelsblatt, the Cologne public prosecutor’s office did not comment specifically on the explosive process. The investigators announced, however, that “search warrants by the District Court of Cologne were executed against three suspects because of the initial suspicion of favoritism on September 28, 2022”.
They found the money during a search related to illegal cum-ex deals. This is what financial experts call stock deals where multiple refunds of capital gains taxes are requested but only paid once. The investigators searched Kahrs’ private apartment and found papers that pointed to a locker.
The public prosecutor’s office then apparently accessed Kahrs’ account at the Hamburger Sparkasse and searched the locker. The NDR also reports that it contained 214,800 euros and 2,400 US dollars.
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However, it is completely unclear whether the cash is related to the cum-ex transactions. It was not secured by the investigators either. Kahrs himself did not respond to a request.
Warburg scandal is also sensitive for Scholz
What is the origin of the money? Apparently there are indications that it is connected to the Cum-Ex affair about the Hamburger Warburg Bank. It could be a quid pro quo for Kahrs’ alleged use of money to save the bank from a million-dollar tax refund.
So far this is completely unsecured. The initial suspicion of favoring tax evasion is therefore examined. At the center of the process is the question of why the financial authorities of the Hanseatic city initially refrained from reclaiming millions in taxes from illegal cum-ex transactions from the bank of entrepreneur Christian Olearius in 2016. The banker is said to have contacted Kahrs, among others, after a raid on his bank and asked for help. This was also promised to him.
>> Also read here: “Mr. Olearius was not guilty of anything” – Warburg-Banker protested his innocence
The Warburg scandal is also sensitive because Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was Hamburg’s first mayor at the time – and Kahrs was not only his party friend, but also a confidant. At least one meeting between Scholz and Olearius is documented.
The Chancellor denies any influence on the initially unclaimed tax refund of around 90 million euros. According to his own statements, he cannot really remember the content of the discussions with the Warburg bankers.
Scholz did not know anything about a possible larger amount of cash in Johannes Kahrs’ possession. He can rule that out, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Monday in Berlin.
At the end of next week, Scholz will again answer the questions of the investigative committee on the so-called cum-ex scandal surrounding the Hamburg Warburg Bank. “Everything that needs to be said will be dealt with there, too,” Hebestreit said.
The Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry is investigating whether political influence was used to prevent the Hamburg tax authorities from claiming back 47 million euros in tax money from the Warburg Bank.
The opposition is increasingly demanding a quick and complete clarification of the matter. If Kahrs does not explain the origin of the money, but remains silent, the suspicion arises that this sum has something to do with the scandal, said the former member of the Bundestag for the left, Fabio De Masi, on Monday on Deutschlandfunk. Then this would also be a problem for Chancellor Scholz, who was the first mayor of Hamburg at the time.
De Masi emphasized that Kahrs’ main task was to arrange the meetings between Scholz and representatives of the private bank. Scholz is to testify next week in the investigative committee of the Hamburg Parliament on the Cum-Ex affair.
CDU: “Scholz and Tschentscher may no longer go underground”
“The inconsistencies are increasing,” said Hamburg’s CDU leader Christoph Ploß to the “Spiegel”. It is neither clear where the Kahrs got the money from nor to what extent the social democratic network in Hamburg benefited from these events. Scholz and the First Mayor Peter Tschentscher, who was still Senator for Finance at the time, should “no longer go underground”.
The 58-year-old Kahrs had resigned from all political offices in 2020 after losing out in the party’s internal race against Eva Högl for the office of military commissioner. The long-standing member of the Bundestag and colonel in the reserve of the Bundeswehr had his constituency in Hamburg-Mitte for more than 20 years. He was budget spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag and one of the spokesmen for the influential Seeheimer Kreis.
More: The next committee of inquiry for Scholz