As of: February 1, 2024, 4:47 p.m
By: Peter Sieben
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Press
Split
Criminals launder a fortune worth 100 billion euros every year.
A new law is supposed to prevent that.
A demand from the SPD goes even further.
Berlin – Dirty money quickly becomes clean again in this country.
Security experts have been complaining for years: Anyone who wants to finance terrorists or mafia businesses without being noticed has it very easy in Germany.
Criminals launder assets worth 100 billion euros every year.
Enough money to finance the federal government's climate package twice over.
But the investigators only see one percent of all cases.
Conversely, this means that money launderers are 99 percent successful.
Germany is therefore considered a paradise for organized crime.
Germany is a money laundering paradise for mafia and terrorists
The federal government wants to change that: with a law and a completely new higher federal authority.
In the future it will be called the Federal Office to Combat Financial Crime (BBF), and over 1,500 people will work at two locations in Cologne and Dresden.
However, critics say: The new authority is a toothless tiger.
“The bill now being discussed in the German Bundestag is more of a problem than a solution,” says Jochen Kopelke, federal chairman of the police union (GdP).
The creation of the BBF does not simplify anything, but actually increases the need for coordination with existing police structures, Kopelke told
IPPEN.MEDIA
.
The new authority is actually intended to pool competencies and facilitate investigations.
For example, the Central Office for Financial Transaction Investigations (FIU), which was previously located at customs, and the Central Office for Sanctions Enforcement (ZfS) are to be merged into the new authority.
However, other tasks remain with the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Customs Investigation Service (ZFD).
“We fear police intelligence and data gaps,” says trade unionist Kopelke.
It cannot be ruled out that there will be “competitive criminal policy situations” in the future.
Because: “The police tasks of the new authority are not clearly differentiated from those of the federal and state police forces.”
Police unions demand financial police based on the Italian model
He would like a model based on the Italian model.
The authorities there have decades of experience in combating mafia structures.
“We need a financial police in Germany that would be very comparable to the Italian Guardia di Finanza and can be formed from the customs enforcement police control, search and investigation services,” said GdP leader Jochen Kopelke.
The Guardia di Finanza (GDF) is a largely autonomous police force with broad powers responsible for combating the full spectrum of economic crime.
There are hardly any comparable authorities in other European countries.
Kilian Wegner, junior professor of white collar criminal law at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), also sees a need for improvement in the draft law.
“For now,” the work order for the new authority is “sufficiently formulated,” said Wegner at a hearing in the Bundestag on the topic on Monday.
But: “Practice will include many constellations that are not yet adequately regulated here.” He also spoke out in favor of a reform in the area of asset determination and confiscation of money or real estate.
A large portion of laundered money ends up in real estate
Criminal organizations invest up to 30 percent of the money they collect illegally in houses and apartments.
The criminals often get away with it.
Recently, a trial in Berlin caused a stir: the public prosecutor had previously had to return confiscated properties to an Arab clan because it could not be conclusively clarified whether the funds for purchasing the houses came from illegal sources.
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“The state must shed its naivety.
There are enough cases where it is clear: the money cannot come from a legal source.
We need new legal options for these cases,” says Sebastian Fiedler, criminal policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, to
IPPEN.MEDIA
.
There are already numerous properties that criminals have used for money laundering.
“We demand that these properties can be confiscated by the state under new legal regulations if there is suspicion that dirty assets were used in the purchase.”