This raid on the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt yesterday....a big deal?
I'll reference the basic story at HR (my regional Hessen public TV news).
A police search occurred with 170 officials, involving city cops, the federal cops, the city prosecutor's office, and the federal tax office......on the suspicion of money laundering. Folks say the search will continue on Friday.
The chatter here is that money was moved to off-shore 'companies' in special countries (often referred to as tax havens), and this revolves around foreign tax criminals.
I should note that a private business or two (the Geldhaus in Eschborn and a private house in Groß-Umstadt) are part of the deal as well.
What this centers on? Various news groups suggest two central employees at the bank are the chief (and perhaps only players) in this scheme. Both are over forty years old and said to be full-time employees of the bank.
Why the continual trend of money-laundering in Germany, and Germans shifting money outside of the country? Mostly over tax reasons.
About a year ago, I was reading through a business piece which chatted about a Cyprus document that showed up in Germany....identifying various private German folks who had started companies in Cyprus and used the companies to buy property, investments, freighters, etc. It was done in a way that made the Cyprus authorities happy, but denied the German government their taxation money. It used to be that you'd go to Luxembourg or Switzerland....to stage a hidden account and invest your money without German taxation going on. Both of those countries now are more transparent....making secret investments almost impossible.
The odds here that the Deutsche Bank is in trouble? I think they will find the two guys used weaknesses in the system, and avoided the normal detection 'tricks'. But the more they dig into this.....they probably will find dozens of other banks around Germany with the same weakness, and others helping to shuffle money out of the country. Who knows....there could be tens of billions being moved out of Germany yearly.
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