January 28, 2026, 3:33 p.mJanuary 28, 2026, 4:04 p.m
Raid at Deutsche Bank: On suspicion of money laundering, the judiciary is searching the headquarters of Germany’s largest financial institution in Frankfurt as well as one of the bank’s locations in Berlin – on the very day before the DAX group’s balance sheet is presented for 2025. Unknown people in charge and employees are accused, as the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office announced.
Deutsche Bank confirms the searches.Image: DPA
The Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor’s office for white-collar criminal matters is conducting the investigation together with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The background to this is the institute’s previous business relationships with foreign companies, which themselves are suspected of having carried out money laundering.
According to the investigators, additional evidence was to be secured during the searches. According to information from “Spiegel”, which had previously reported on this, around 30 plainclothes investigators entered the bank’s headquarters in downtown Frankfurt shortly after 10 a.m.
Balance sheet presentation in the shadow of the money laundering investigation
On the stock exchange, Deutsche Bank’s share price temporarily fell by around three percent after the searches became known. The DAX group’s figures presented this Thursday are not a good thing: analysts expect that the institute will have significantly increased its profit in 2025 to almost 6 billion euros. But now CEO Christian Sewing has to prepare for critical questions about the raid.
Bank confirms searches
The exact reason for the searches initially remained unclear. “No further information can be provided about the background of the business relationships, the transactions carried out through Deutsche Bank AG and their scope, or about the companies themselves,” explained a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office.
A spokesman for Deutsche Bank confirmed the searches upon request, without providing further details: “We confirm that a measure by the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office is currently being carried out at Deutsche Bank’s business premises,” said the spokesman. “The bank is cooperating fully with the public prosecutor’s office. We ask for your understanding that we will not comment beyond this.”
The Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt. image: dpa
I’ve often had trouble with supervision
Accusations of not paying close enough attention to the issue of money laundering and filing suspicious activity reports too late have repeatedly caused problems for Deutsche Bank. At the end of April 2022, for example, investigators from the public prosecutor’s office, BKA and Bafin searched the bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt.
Bank employees are required by law to immediately report any suspicion that customers want to launder funds from criminal transactions or that transactions are related to terrorist financing. Such suspicious transaction reports often concern correspondent banking. There, Deutsche Bank uses its global reach to help other financial institutions process payment transactions.
The financial regulator Bafin temporarily sent a special representative to the bank to monitor progress in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing – a first in the German banking industry. The special representative was withdrawn at the end of 2024. (awp/sda/dpa)