The prosecutors said that a search warrant was issued by Frankfurt’s district court, based on the suspicion that unnamed Deutsche Bank employees may have violated anti-money laundering laws.
Deutsche Bank confirmed the raid and said it was linked to suspicious activity reports issued by the bank that flagged potential money laundering.
According to Financial Times that the raid was over a payment by Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the Syrian president; he was sentenced to four years in prison over money laundering in France in 2022. Assad was not a client of Deutsche Bank, but the German bank about five years ago had cleared at least one payment on behalf of a lender where Assad had an account.
Deutsche’s corporate bank offers correspondent banking services to other lenders. In such transactions, it acts as middleman, clearing cross-border money flows between banks.
The payment was spotted by Deutsche Bank when it screened its data for Assad-linked transactions after his sentencing in France, and it was subsequently reported to Germany’s anti-money laundering authority.
The raid was triggered by the late filing of the transaction, with criminal prosecutors suspecting the lender may have violated its legal obligations by not reporting them earlier, the people said.
In recent years, Deutsche Bank has been under fire from regulators over inept anti-money laundering controls.
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