Investigators from Frankfurt’s public prosecutor’s office searched the offices of Germany’s largest lender Deutsche Bank on Friday, focusing on the bank’s anti-money laundering efforts.
Officers from the BKA federal police, the financial watchdog BaFin and the prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt were deployed to the scene.
Deutsche Bank, in a statement, said the “investigative measure by the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office in connection with suspicious activity reports filed by the bank.”
“Deutsche Bank is fully cooperating with the authorities,” a portion of the bank statement read.
Investigators were looking into a transaction involving Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, that occurred some years ago, according to a report by the financial journal Handelsblatt.
Despite the fact that Assad did not have a bank account with Deutsche Bank, the bank is claimed to have distributed money to the Assad family as part of a technical agreement with other banks, Handelsblatt reported.