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Finance Minister Scholz
Photo: Felix Zahn / imago images / photothek
For a long time hardly anyone knew her, but after raids in the finance and justice ministries, the “Financial Intelligence Unit” (FIU), the money laundering special unit of the customs, came into the focus of public attention.
Public prosecutors have been investigating the special unit, which is subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Finance under Minister Olaf Scholz, for some time.
Before tomorrow's special meeting of the Bundestag's finance committee on the subject, the FDP is calling for reforms of the FIU - and renewing its criticism of Scholz. "Unfortunately, the Financial Intelligence Unit is in the worst possible condition," said FDP parliamentary deputy Christian Dürr the SPIEGEL. His group therefore wants to strengthen the authority so that Germany is better positioned in the fight against money laundering, terrorist financing and accounting fraud.
In the five-point paper that is available to SPIEGEL, the FDP parliamentary group is now calling, among other things, for the "FIU's access rights to police and tax data to be extended or made possible in principle." Without better research facilities, the FIU could not properly assess whether "a matter reported to it is related to money laundering, terrorist financing or some other criminal offense."
In addition to better equipment with computer technology, the FIU employees need
,
"the knowledge of the workings of the financial market, corporate structures and tax law have and also determination tactical knowledge have", says the FDP paper.
In order to recruit people with these selected qualifications, "increased use of non-tariff remuneration" is required.
Dürr said that after the Wirecard scandal, the FIU investigations also showed that Scholz did not have his business area under control.
"There are doubts that these are good prerequisites for moving into the Chancellery," Dürr attacked the SPD candidate for Chancellor about a week before the federal election.
The public prosecutor's office and the police carried out searches in the federal ministries of finance and justice last week. Since February 2020, the Osnabrück public prosecutor's office has been investigating the FIU for obstruction of punishment in the office. It is about the question of whether the special unit of banks did not forward money laundering suspicion reports "in the millions" to the police and the judiciary, according to the public prosecutor. For the competitors of the SPD, the best campaign ammunition was, while the Social Democrats sensed a targeted campaign, since the investigating public prosecutor in Osnabrück is led by a CDU member (read here what the raid is really about).
The reports about the FIU come at an inopportune time for the SPD, which is currently in the polls before the Union.
Scholz will be forced to answer the questions of the MPs in the special meeting of the finance committee on Monday morning.
The special session had been requested by the FDP, the Greens and the Left.
Scholz apparently wants to connect digitally to the meeting.
Relocated from the Federal Criminal Police Office to Customs in 2017
In 2017, the FIU was relocated from the area of the Federal Criminal Police Office to the Ministry of Finance under the then Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU). There are considerations in the Union to move the unit back into the portfolio of the Ministry of the Interior. The FDP rejects that. Relocation, according to the Liberals, would not solve the systematic problems of dealing with tasks. Instead, the authority needs to be strengthened.
