Frankfurt Unpleasant visit for Deutsche Bank: On Friday, the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the financial supervisory authority Bafin searched the premises of the bank. The search measures were taking place “due to a search warrant from the Frankfurt district court”, the Frankfurt public prosecutor announced.
The criminal investigation authority did not want to provide any further details “due to the ongoing investigation measures”. According to information from the Handelsblatt, the investigators accuse Deutsche Bank of having submitted suspicious money laundering reports too late. The background is a transaction from the correspondent banking sector.
Many years ago, the bank failed to file a complaint, although there were suspicions or suspicious people were involved, said a person familiar with the matter. The bank recently forwarded this information to the authorities, but from their point of view this report was made too late. According to the insider, the allegations are directed against unknown persons.
Another person familiar with the searches said the search was about an isolated case from the customer sphere. It’s not about the greenwashing allegations at DWS or allegations in the context of the cum scandal.
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The bank announced that “this is an investigative measure by the Frankfurt public prosecutor in connection with reports of suspected money laundering that the bank has submitted”. The bank cooperates “fully with the authorities”. The institute did not want to comment on the further information from the Handelsblatt.
Deutsche Bank shares fall into the red
The stock gave back gains in Friday trading and fell back into the red. With a loss of more than four percent, the titles were among the biggest losers in the Dax at noon.
In the past, Deutsche Bank has repeatedly struggled with deficits in money laundering prevention. That was expensive in part: in early 2017, for example, British and American regulators fined the institute $630 million because Russian customers had laundered billions through the bank.
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In Germany, too, the bank has already paid various fines due to deficiencies in money laundering prevention. In December 2019, the institute accepted a fine of 15 million euros for the offshore business of its subsidiary Regula Limited, which has since been sold.
In autumn 2020, prosecutors then imposed a fine of 13.5 million euros because the bank failed to file suspicious activity reports in connection with the Danske Bank money laundering scandal and the “Azerbaijan Laundromat” (“Azerbaijan Laundromat”) – a money laundering scheme unveiled in 2017 submitted on time. In early 2019, regulators ordered the bank to re-verify the identity of thousands of investment banking and corporate banking customers and complete their customer files.
The money house had repeatedly increased its budget for fighting financial crime in recent years. Nevertheless, the Bafin reprimanded the bank in April 2021 because of the slow progress in improving prevention from their point of view.
She therefore supplemented and extended the mandate of the money laundering special supervisor she used in 2018 at the money house. The bank changed its money laundering officer shortly afterwards.
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