German investigators on Wednesday carried out searches at the offices of Deutsche Bank as part of an investigation into suspected money laundering, officials said.
Prosecutors in Frankfurt said the probe
is targeting “unknown employees” and is examining the bank’s past business relationships with foreign entities that are suspected of having been used to launder money. Searches were conducted at Deutsche Bank’s offices in Frankfurt, where it is headquartered, and in Berlin. The Frankfurt prosecutor’s office declined to provide further details on the scale or nature of the transactions under scrutiny.
In a brief statement, Deutsche Bank confirmed the presence of investigators at its premises, saying it is fully cooperating with the authorities. “We cannot comment further,” the bank added.
The searches come just a day ahead of Deutsche Bank’s scheduled release of its 2025 earnings report.
The lender has faced repeated regulatory scrutiny in the past. In 2018, it was fined $205 million by New York regulators for manipulating the foreign exchange market. A year earlier, the US Federal Reserve imposed a $41 million fine over failures to maintain adequate anti–money laundering controls. In 2017, the bank also paid $629 million in penalties to New York and British regulators for control lapses that allowed wealthy Russian clients to launder about $10 billion in illicit funds through the institution.
Money laundering generally refers to financial transactions designed to disguise the origins of illegally obtained funds, making them appear to come from legitimate sources.
