Big Raids at Deutsche Result in Comparatively Small Fine
11 December 2019: In November 2018, footage emerged that showed 170 law enforcement officials raiding Deutsche Bank in a case of suspected money laundering. Unsurprisingly, the footage spooked investors and saw the lender’s share price dive to an all-time-low.
However, despite the high-profile coverage of the case, in which it was suspected that Deutsche staff had helped clients set up offshore accounts to “transfer money from criminal activities”, it has recently settled. In fact, it has settled with a comparatively small fine of $16.6million issued by Frankfurt prosecutors to Deutsche for its failure to flag suspicious transactions. Moreover, the prosecutor has dropped the criminal charges it was pursuing against two Deutsche Bank employees, due to a lack of “sufficient suspicion”, Deutsche added.
A spokesperson for Deutsche, Joerg Eigendorf, commented that the case had “burdened us a lot last year”. Deutsche has accepted the fine and will continue to aid the prosecutors in its investigation into the Danske money-laundering scandal. Since 2016, the lender has more than trebled the staff in its anti-financial crime unit and spent 700m on modernising control functions.