Prosecutors in Frankfurt, Germany have targeted a former anti-money laundering official at Deutsche Bank in a probe regarding the suspicion of money laundering, Reuters reported on Monday (Dec. 10).
The official was not named in the news, which was reported by Hessischer Rundfunk, a German public broadcaster. Prosecutors are accusing the unnamed official of not reporting suspicious transactions at the bank, even though the official had enough evidence to see money laundering in action, Rundfunk reported. The radio personality did not cite any sources.
Deutsche Bank also made news last month when six of its offices were raided in and around Frankfurt, also over money laundering allegations that were tied to the Panama Papers.
That raid was related to a tiny unit at Deutsche Bank – one that barely saw a profit and made up a very small portion of the bank’s overall revenue. The unit, which was based in the British Virgin Islands, was part of the bank’s Global Trust Solutions (GTS) business, which had been for sale since 2016. The business was handling trusts in low-tax locations like Germany and the Virgin Islands. In October of 2017, a deal was reached to sell the unit to N.T. Butterfield & Son, and the sale was completed in March.
The Panama Papers are involved in the situation because one of GTS’ legal entities was the British Virgin Islands-based Regula Limited, which was named in the leaked documents. Regula Limited opened trusts for an estimated 900 people with about $350 million in assets. Most of its clients were in Latin America and Asia-Pacific locales, and only a few were in Germany. Authorities think Deutsche Bank clients transferred money that was tied to illegal activities into offshore accounts, and that the bank circumvented its legal duty to flag those transactions as suspicious.
Deutsche Bank’s shares hit a bottom on Friday and traded 4.4 percent lower. They are down 53 percent this year.
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