Posted on 11/29/2018 7:49:37 AM PST by SeekAndFind
German police raided Deutsche Bank offices on Thursday, seeking evidence in a money laundering investigation into the practice of hiding money offshore to elude tax collectors and government regulators.
"Police officers and tax inspectors entered Deutsche Bank's headquarters in Frankfurt early Thursday morning and seized documents," NPR's Esme Nicholson reports from Berlin. "Prosecutors are investigating two employees of the bank who allegedly assisted customers in setting up offshore firms to avoid anti-money laundering safeguards when transferring money to accounts at Deutsche Bank."
Nicholson adds, "According to investigators, in 2016 alone, more than 900 Deutsche Bank customers were served by a subsidiary registered in the British Virgin Islands."
Those 900 customers did business totaling 311 million euros (about $350 million), the Frankfurt prosecutor's office said.
The search involved some 170 officers from the prosecutor's office, the tax investigation department and the federal police, said senior public prosecutor Nadja Niesen, in an email to NPR. She added that the search resulted in the seizure of "numerous business documents" in either electronic or paper form. There have been no arrests, Niesen said.
Deutsche Bank has been fined and criticized for its poor record of preventing money laundering. As Deutsche Welle reports, "In August, it confirmed that even after it was fined for helping Russian clients wash some $10 billion, its mechanisms to stop such criminal activity were still inefficient.
In a brief statement, the bank confirmed the investigation taking place "at a number of our offices in Germany."
Without providing details about the inquiry, Deutsche Bank stated, "The investigation has to do with the Panama Papers case." It added, "We are cooperating fully with the authorities."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Based on what’s said out of Frankfurt today...it’s strictly one small group of employees on their own time and own effort....using the bank as a ‘middle-guy’. There’s just a lot of Germans who want their cash quietly sitting outside of the government’s view, and avoid taxation.
Off-shore tax evasion. Nothing to see here.
ping
wary inkterestink
Your drug dollars at work.
surely, this raid of deutsche bank off shore operations wouldn’t turn up anything on John Podesta and his shady dealings with joule energy that was arranged by the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, at the heart of the Panama Papers investigation
surely surely not.
Naaaahhhhh.
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