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Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD)
Photo: FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS
200,000 euros were found in a locker belonging to the former SPD member of the Bundestag Johannes Kahrs. The money may be connected to the so-called cum-ex scandal involving the Warburg Bank in Hamburg.
The tax affair is now increasing the pressure on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).
But according to his spokesman, he knew nothing about the sum owned by his party colleague: government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in Berlin that he could rule that out.
At the end of next week, Scholz will again answer the questions of the committee of inquiry on the Cum-Ex scandal.
"Everything that needs to be said will be dealt with there, too," Hebestreit said.
Opposition politicians from Union and Linke had previously insisted that Scholz comment on the latest investigation findings.
"It is not at all clear where the Kahrs got the money from and to what extent the social democratic network in Hamburg benefited from these events," Hamburg's CDU leader Christoph Ploß told SPIEGEL.
"Here, the SPD also has a duty at federal level to finally clear things up."
And the former left-wing member of the Bundestag Fabio De Masi wrote on Twitter: "Either Kahrs proves the origin of the money or he invokes his right to remain silent because of the Cum-Ex investigations against him." In the latter case, De concluded Masi, it is obvious that the money is connected to the Cum-Ex case "and the Chancellor also has a problem".
Kahrs is silent on the amount of money found
At Kahrs in Hamburg there was a raid last year in connection with the Cum-Ex scandal, as the dpa news agency learned from informed circles at the time.
Because of the initial suspicion of favoritism against three suspects, investigators had searched not only private rooms but also the premises of the Hamburg tax authority, the Cologne public prosecutor said at the time.
Investigations to date have "provided indications of criminally relevant behavior on the part of the accused in connection with the 'Cum/Ex transactions' of a Hamburg-based bank that are the subject of the proceedings".
It is unclear whether the money found in the locker is related to the affair.
Possession in and of itself is not illegal.
The Cologne public prosecutor's office responsible for the investigation initially did not comment on this when asked.
Kahrs has not yet been available for comment and has not responded to inquiries.
In cum-ex transactions, financial players shifted blocks of shares with (»cum«) and without (»ex«) dividend entitlement around the dividend date in a complicated system and then had the tax refunded several times.
The Hamburg investigative committee is to clarify whether leading SPD politicians are influencing tax decisions at the Warburg Bank, which was involved in the scandal.
The background is, among other things, meetings between the then mayor Scholz and the shareholders of the bank, Christian Olearius and Max Warburg, in 2016 and 2017. Scholz had stated that he could not remember the meetings, but political influence was categorically ruled out.
mrc/dpa