Deutsche Bank is back in scandal mode – economy

• Officials from the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Criminal Investigation Bureau, the Tax Investigation Department and the Federal Police on Thursday raided the Deutsche Bank headquarters.
• Banks suspect investigators of having reserved funds from alleged tax offenses via mailbox companies – and consider them as the so-called primary money laundering offenses.
• From the month of August, the prosecutor's office has determined Frankfurt. Investigators apparently quickly found concrete suspicions against employees.

of Frederik Obermaier. Meike Schreiber and Jan Willmroth

As martial as 2012, it did not work this time. In the scandal of tax evasion with certificates at that time, 500 officials, partially armed and wearing the helmet, searched for hours in the center of the German bank, as if it was against a leader of the mafia. The helmets remained in the car on Thursday, but the investigators were not discreet. 170 officials from the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Tax Investigation and the Federal Police raided including the headquarters of the financial institution in Frankfurt.

They parked their patrol cars behind the two glbad towers, a dark car with blue lights in front of them, and simply took the main entrance. At about the same time, the Frankfurt prosecutor's office sent a search notice, which completely surprised the board and the supervisory board: money laundering, urgent suspicion. Two employees aged 46 and 50 and other suspects are currently under investigation. One of them is supposed to be a member of the Financial Crime Department and the other is a consultant. The investigators remained until the evening, this Friday, the searches should continue. Deutsche Bank, of course, is suddenly scandalous again.

Investigations within Regula Limited

This time, they are so-called offshore companies in tax havens and Panama Papers – an issue that the bank considered to be largely settled. In any case, after all the scandals, we looked at each other as uncluttered, we let the executives behave with remorse, we pointed out how much we had to clean up. The legal legacies are complete, still stresses Christian Sewing, who runs the house since April 2018. In a summary statement, the institute said that he had been of the opinion that he had provided to the authorities all relevant information on the Panama Papers. The fact that you "cooperate fully with the authorities" is "proven for years".

But a raid with 170 officials, simply because one or two documents are missing? This is to know more: from August, the Frankfurt prosecutor's office, headed by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), badyzed the datasets of the Panama Papers and Offshore Leaks. Investigators apparently quickly found concrete suspicions against employees. Barely three months pbaded before the search warrant for the large-scale raid was approved.

The bank has credited funds of tax companies suspected of alleged tax offenses, suspects investigators and considers this as an alleged predicate of money laundering. In 2016, more than 900 customers representing a business volume of 311 million euros would have been supported by a group company based in the British Virgin Islands. This gives only an idea of ​​the actual magnitude of the claims relating to the years 2013 to 2018. Apparently, the investigation relates to the company Regula Limited, a former subsidiary. In the Panama Papers, SZ, NDR and WDR, in cooperation with media outlets from 76 countries, revealed in the spring of 2016 how politicians, sports officials, billionaires and criminals were using mailbox companies in Panama to hide money to the authorities. For decades, the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has contributed to the creation of such companies.

The raids may well be only the beginning of a series of searches

The publications made the German investigators curious. The authorities rejected requests for documents submitted by the authorities, in particular to protect his informant. A few months later, however, the BKA announced that it was in possession of Panama Papers papers and tax haven data. An investigative group called "Olet" – its name derives from the Latin saying "pecunia non olet" (the money does not stink) – is put to evaluate everything, sharing data with dozens States, so that an investigation is conducted.

In Germany, the investigation seems to have progressed enough for the strike to start. According to the investigators, the raid on the Deutsche Bank could only be the beginning of a whole series of searches.

In the Mossack Fonseca documents, Deutsche Bank had eleven different intermediary profiles, such as Deutsche Bank Switzerland, branches in Jersey and Mauritius. As a result, the institute has negotiated or managed more than 400 front companies. The Swiss branch alone paid about $ 160,000 in annual dues in 2006 – for a three-digit number of companies Mossack Fonseca gave to the bank. Mailbox companies have been commissioned en mbade: according to a 2010 Mossack-Fonseca note, an employee of Deutsche Bank would have ordered, for example, a dozen or so front companies per month. According to the firm, the bank, like many other German banks, is struggling to "designate the true owners of offshore companies."

Deutsche Bank has a lot of experience in this secret sector. In the 1970s, it opened offices in Jersey and Guernsey, followed in 1983 from the Cayman Islands, from 1999 to Mauritius – where there was a "fiscally neutral environment", which had been announced in the year. time. On a website of the institute, there was even a special inscription: "engaged in offshore financial services for over 30 years". According to the latest annual report, Deutsche Bank still has branches in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Mauritius and Jersey. And Regula Limited, which is now the focus of the investigation, according to public documents, according to 2017, the group.

Following the publication of the Panama Papers, the bank stated that the transactions had been made "in accordance with the law". Do not provide more customers to Panama companies. Similarly, Felix Hufeld, head of German financial supervision Bafin, indirectly raised the bank. The Bafin then asked eleven German banks to search their databases for offshore agreements with Mossack Fonseca. After two years of testing, Hufeld declared in early 2018 that it had "appeared until now" only if none of the eleven institutions had "seriously breached the anti-trust regulations. money laundering ". Formally, banks have largely complied with the applicable money laundering regulations.

So everything's OK? Bafin did not want to comment on Thursday's events. The raid in Frankfurt will also be closely followed in Bonn, where the agency has its headquarters.