Deutsche Bank Offices in Frankfurt Raided

Sept. 26, 2019 (EIRNS)—German authorities have raided Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt headquarters in search of information related to Danske Bank and a money-laundering scandal, Frankfurt prosecutors said Sept. 25. They are investigating whether Germany’s biggest bank facilitated money laundering and whether it failed to alert authorities about suspicious transactions quickly enough, the prosecutors said.

Danske Bank is under investigation in several countries, including the United States, Denmark, Britain and Estonia, over suspicious payments totalling €200 billion ($220 billion) moved through its tiny Estonian branch. Deutsche Bank acted as a correspondent bank for Danske.

The search, which began on Sept. 24 and concluded in the evening of Sept. 25, involved three prosecutors and nine agents from Germany’s Federal Criminal Police, BKA. Deutsche Bank said it was cooperating.

Prosecutors said the period in question is between 2014-2018, and that there is a suspect who worked at the bank during that period. Deutsche Bank had alerted authorities to no less than 1.1 million suspicious transactions, prosecutors said. Prosecutors also said that a double-digit number of transactions, with a volume of €12.5 million, were either registered too late by Deutsche Bank with authorities, or that the bank should have blocked them from the start.