Deutsche Bank AML Probes Now Reach The US

Deutsche Bank has been implicated in a criminal probe for failing to follow money laundering laws, according to a report by The Financial Times.

The report is connected to a whistleblower named Tammy McFadden who was a compliance officer and worked in Jacksonville, Florida for the bank. In 2016 and ‘17, she said, she flagged a series of transactions involving companies controlled by President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

She said that her concerns about the transactions were ignored by the bank and that she was fired for bringing them up. She filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The investigation of criminality was started after Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, mentioned McFadden’s concerns to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. From there, the case went to the Department of Justice.

“Any allegations regarding Deutsche Bank’s relationship with Kushner Companies which involved money laundering is completely made up and totally false,” a Kushner Company spokesperson said.

Both the DOJ and Deutsche Bank said they didn’t want to comment.

The investigation is one in a series of setbacks for the bank. In June, the bank said that its poor sanctions and money-laundering controls let suspicious payments go through without the proper screening. In May, news came to light about a software glitch that also let transactions that should have been flagged go through.

Also in June, German prosecutors have started a probe into whether the former chief of the company’s investment bank and other workers were involved in illegal tax transactions, while another executive is accused of manipulating Euribor.

All the while, the bank is struggling in the financial department, and the bank’s chief executive, Christian Sewing, recently downsized the bank’s investment arm and created a “bad bank” to handle non-core assets.

All of the news has shares in the bank at an all-time low, down 12.6 percent in 2019.