Officers from the financial regulator BaFin, the federal police and the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office stormed the bank’s glass-clad offices – known locally as “twin towers” – on Friday morning after securing a search warrant from the local court. Deutsche Bank said the matter had been reported on its own and that it was “fully cooperating” with police and prosecutors, who launched a raid on its offices at 10am. “This is an investigative measure by the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office in relation to reports of suspicious activity [SARs] “was filed by the bank,” the lender said in a statement. “Deutsche Bank fully cooperates with the authorities.” Banks and other financial institutions report SARs to law enforcement when they suspect that a customer may be using their services for potential criminal activity. However, SARs do not mean that a customer is guilty of wrongdoing or require a bank to stop cooperating with the customer. It is understood that the issue is related to the late SAR deposit related to the role of Deutsche Bank as a correspondent bank, where it operates on behalf of another lender. A spokesman for the Frankfurt public prosecutor said they could not provide more information while the investigation was ongoing. Shares of Deutsche Bank fell almost 2.6% after the news. Deustche Bank is Germany’s largest lender and employs almost 3,000 people at its headquarters in Frankfurt. Deutsche Bank’s offices were also subjected to a two-day raid by 170 police officers in 2018, with staff later accused of helping wealthy customers evade taxes. Prosecutors later stopped their investigation into two officials, but fined the lender for failing to comply. Deutsche Bank has struggled to repair its reputation following a series of scandals and collusion with controversial customers, including former US President Donald Trump. The lender was fined $ 630 million in 2017 after US and UK authorities accused the bank of failing to detect fraudulent transactions worth up to $ 10 billion that allowed money laundering by Russia. Two years earlier, she had been fined $ 2.5 billion by the same authorities for her role in distorting the Libor interest rate between 2003 and 2007. A fine of € 13.5 million (11 11.3 million) was also imposed by Frankfurt prosecutors in 2020 for failing to timely submit a suspicious report on transactions carried out on behalf of Danske Bank’s Estonian branch.
