Deutsche Bank offices raided in German money laundering probe

Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt headquarters and other offices have been raided by prosecutors as part of a money laundering investigation.

Frankfurt prosecutors said on Wednesday that the searches were part of a probe into executives and employees of Deutsche Bank on suspicion of money laundering.

Prosecutors said the bank had previously maintained business relationships with foreign companies that were suspected of having been used for money laundering purposes.

The raids came a day ahead of the lender’s annual results, when chief executive Christian Sewing is expected to report its highest profit in many years in an announcement that is now likely to be overshadowed by the probe.

The identities of any executives and employees involved in potential wrongdoing were not yet known, the prosecutors said. The operation also involved a search of a site in Berlin by officers from Germany’s federal criminal police.

Deutsche Bank said it was co-operating fully with the public prosecutor’s office but declined to comment further.

The investigation relates to transactions carried out between 2013 and 2018, according to a person familiar with the matter.

It focuses on possible shortcomings in Deutsche Bank’s anti-money laundering controls linked to a prominent former client, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Investigators were examining whether the bank had been too slow to file one or more suspicious activity reports relating to companies linked to Abramovich, who has been under EU sanctions since 2022, the person added.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the link to Abramovich, which was first reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Banks are required to report suspicious transactions promptly to authorities, with failures potentially leading to significant fines.

Deutsche Bank has previously paid penalties over delayed money laundering reports and was subject to enhanced oversight by Germany’s financial regulator BaFin until the end of 2024.

The searches are reminiscent of a high-profile raid on Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in 2018, when about 170 police officers seized documents as part of an investigation into alleged failures to flag suspicious transactions routed through an offshore unit in the British Virgin Islands.

That probe, which also covered the period from 2013 to 2018, was later dropped for lack of sufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing by employees, although the prosecutors forced the bank to pay €15 million over shortcomings in its anti-money laundering controls.

The episode shook investor confidence and helped trigger a sweeping overhaul of the lender under Sewing.

Shares in Deutsche were down 3.3% in afternoon trading.