Deutsche Bank raided in money-laundering probe
Investigation covers 5-year span linked to 2016 disclosure of ‘Panama Papers’
The activities at Deutsche Bank AG that prompted a police raid on its headquarters took place as recently as this year, according to authorities.
While money-laundering suspicions stem from the 2016 disclosures known as the Panama Papers, the investigation covers the five-year period from 2013 to 2018, a spokeswoman for Frankfurt prosecutors said. The main suspects in the probe focused on a unit in the British Virgin Islands that processed 311 million euros ($354 million) in 2016 alone were two bank employees identified by their ages — 50 and 46. One works in the anti-financial crime office.
The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt said about 170 officials were involved in searches at the company’s business premises.
For the beleaguered German lender, the raid adds to a panoply of headaches — commercial, regulatory and legal — facing CEO Christian Sewing, who took over in April, and Paul Achleitner, chairman since 2012. The stock has lost almost half its value this year, after sliding almost 5 percent Thursday. The cost of insuring its junior debt against losses jumped 12 basis points to 384 basis points, the highest in two years, according to data compiled by CMA.
“This must be associated with criminal behavior and not just a trivial offense,” said Stefan Mueller chief executive officer of DGWA, an investment advisory boutique based in Frankfurt. He believes the bank will now be paralyzed for months until it becomes clear how it will be affected by new potential fines. “Maybe this time, Achleitner will fall. The bank needs fresh blood to make a radical cut at its management.”
The Panama Papers refer to a collection of documents leaked in 2016 from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm that created shell companies to facilitate tax avoidance. At the time, Deutsche Bank severed ties with a Cypriot lender partly owned by VTB Group that was identified in the reporting.
Subsequent investigations exposed evidence Deutsche Bank helped clients set up off-shore accounts, prosecutors said. The officials said the Thursday raid wasn’t related to its role as a correspondent bank for money laundering at Denmark’s Danske Bank. Authorities seized documents and electronic files after more than six police vehicles, blue lights flashing, pulled up to Deutsche Bank’s main offices shortly before 9 a.m., in an operation involving about 170 officers. The home of one of the suspects was also searched.
The German lender may have helped clients in setting up offshore companies in tax havens. Money obtained illegally may have been transferred to accounts at Deutsche Bank, which failed to report the suspicions that the accounts may have been used to launder money, Frankfurt prosecutors said.
“As far as we are concerned, we had already provided the authorities with all the relevant information regarding the Panama Papers,” Deutsche Bank spokesman Joerg Eigendorf told reporters in Frankfurt.
The timing of the raid inflicts more pain on Deutsche Bank after a series of setbacks and repeated failures in keeping misconduct in check have pushed the shares to all-time lows. Investor worries have mounted over its role as a correspondent bank in the multibillion-dollar moneylaundering scandal at Danske, and Germany’s markets regulator has taken the unprecedented step of appointing a monitor to oversee the firm’s efforts to improve money-laundering and terrorism-financing controls.
Also this year, the bank’s arm in the United States failed a Federal Reserve stress test, which found that it had “material weaknesses” in its operations.
Deutsche Bank has spent more than $18 billion paying fines and settling legal disputes since the start of 2008, according to company disclosures compiled by Bloomberg News. In Europe, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc is the only lender to have faced a bigger tab, at $18.1 billion, the Bloomberg calculations show.
“Just when you thought Deutsche Bank had left its legal troubles behind it, there’s more,” said Markus Riesselmann, an analyst at Independent Research who recommends investors sell Deutsche Bank shares. “Investors really want to be able to focus on the bank’s operating business, so this noise around them is quite unhelpful for the mood.”
Ms. Sewing, who took the top job in April, is replacing key executives as part of a management shake-up as he struggles to get Germany’s biggest lender back on track. Sylvie Matherat, a management board member who serves as the bank’s chief regulatory officer, and Tom Patrick, who runs operations in the Americas, are among executives who might ultimately leave, people familiar with the matter said this week.