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A search took place Friday, April 29 at the premises of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt. According to some sources, investigators are looking for clues implicating the laundering of dirty money in connection with the family of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
According to the daily Handelsblattthe search targeted the activities of Rifaat el-Assadformer vice-president of Syria and uncle of Bachar el-Assad. Rifaat el-Assad was sentenced in 2021 in France in the so-called ill-gotten gains case. The investment in Europe of tens of millions of euros embezzled from the coffers of the Syrian state in real estate, works of art and horse breeding.
Rifaat el-Assad is not a customer of the Deutsche Bank. However, the bank would have had a role to play in money transfers concerning this man. Theoretically, when a doubt arises about the origin of financial funds, German banks are required to notify the judicial authorities, indicates our correspondent in Berlin, Léo Bräuer-Potier. According to Handelsblattthe purpose of the search is also to ensure that the bank has complied with its legal obligations.
Deutsche Bank had already been visited by investigators at its headquarters in 2019 on the basis of allegedly insufficient reports of suspicion of money laundering and concerning the Danish bank Danske Bank, at the heart of a money laundering case of around 200 billion euros between 2007 and 2015, via its Estonian subsidiary. The bank subsequently agreed to pay a fine of 13.5 million euros for delaying making these declarations, as part of an administrative infringement procedure launched by the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office.