As of: February 20, 2024, 4:20 p.m
Comments
Press
Split
Police officers stand behind a police tape.
© Hannes P. Albert/dpa/Symbolbild
Observations, intercepted phone calls, cross-border investigations.
Police and public prosecutors suspect an international money laundering network.
They hope to find evidence through raids.
Berlin - It's about an international money laundering network and organized crime.
In order to get to the bottom of those involved, the Berlin public prosecutor's office carried out searches in Germany, Latvia and Malta on Tuesday, an authority spokesman said.
So far, eleven suspects between the ages of 31 and 58 are being investigated for gang and commercial money laundering.
The investigators suspect that a total of assets in the mid-double-digit million range could have been laundered.
According to the spokesman, one of the main suspects was arrested in Lindow, Brandenburg.
The accused are said to have set up a network of companies with numerous fake managers in order to be able to carry out illegal flows of money and conceal the illegal origin of the money.
The actions are said to have been carried out via a bank in Malta from July 2021 at the latest.
According to the investigations so far, the group is said to have been active mainly from Berlin and Riga, according to the public prosecutor's office.
From their point of view, the network operates in the area of Russian-Eurasian organized crime.
According to the public prosecutor's office, the searches were preceded by extensive investigations with surveillance and intercepted telephone calls.
There has been a joint investigation group between Latvia and Germany since December 2023.
Investigators in Malta and the European police and judicial authorities Europol and EuroJust were also involved.
According to the information, 58 apartments and business premises were searched in Germany - 51 in Berlin alone, especially in the Wilmersdorf district.
There were further raids in Baden-Württemberg (Konstanz) and Saxony (Leipzig) as well as in the Brandenburg towns of Neuruppin, Ludwigsfelde and Ruhlsdorf.
Around 460 police forces were involved.
At the same time, there were reportedly raids on around 20 locations in Latvia, mostly in Riga.
In Malta, the bank was searched and money was secured in eight Maltese accounts.
According to the public prosecutor's office, business documents, data carriers and cell phones were seized and are now being evaluated.
Around four million euros could have so far been attributed to suspected fraud and subsidy fraud.
dpa