Reuters sources said the DoJ’s new line of inquiry is whether Deutsche helped move tainted money from Danske, Denmark’s largest lender, into the US. If proven, that could lead to steep financial penalties.
Officials from the DoJ, who have been working closely with Estonian prosecutors for around a year, have also begun cooperating with Frankfurt state prosecutors, the sources said. Still, the DoJ and Frankfurt state prosecutors declined to comment on the US investigation, which two sources told Reuters is due to be completed in 2020.
In 2018, Danske Bank admitted that its branch in Estonia had processed suspicious payments totalling EUR 200 bln from Russia and elsewhere. Moreover, the bulk of these payments were processed by Deutsche, sources have previously told Reuters.
Back then, the Justice Department requested information from Deutsche relating to Danske transactions, only, however in recent months Deutsche officials were made aware that the scope of the DoJ probe had broadened to the bank’s role in facilitating the Danske trades and its possible failure to report suspicious transactions quickly enough.
The German lender has already paid nearly USD 700 mln in fines by New York and British regulators in a separate money laundering case involving USD 10 bln in so-called mirror trades from Russia, which the DoJ is still investigating.
