Financial supervision investigates against Trump

T.WandlerBusiness

Author: Thomas Wandler
Date: 23.05.2019

Money laundering at Deutsche Bank?

US President Donald Trump has been targeted by financial supervisors due to conspicuous cash flows in 2016 and 2017: Employees of Deutsche Bank, where Trump is a customer, became aware of suspicious cash flows at the time. The New York Times reported this with reference to five former and current employees of the German financial institution.

A software system for illegal activities of Deutsche Bank had reported warnings for some transactions at that time. The employees drew up reports and wanted to forward them to an administrative unit for white-collar crime, but this was prevented by managers.

Affected by this are transactions of some companies of the president as well as one of his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Nothing is known about the nature of the transactions, but at least one of them is connected to the Trump Foundation, a charitable organization that has been dissolved in the meantime.

Connection to other states?

The President’s finances are now being investigated by the US Congress and the New York State authorities. The Democrats in the US House of Representatives have requested the President’s documents from Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions. After the German financial institution handed them over to the investigators, Trump and his family complained.

Specifically, the aim is to determine whether other states have exercised influence on US policy. In particular, possible links to Russia will be sought. Deutsche Bank provided Trump with large loans before his time as president and is therefore the focus of attention.

Deutsche Bank has not yet commented on the allegations against Trump. A spokeswoman merely stated that employees would not be prevented from reporting suspicious events. Deutsche Bank is increasingly working against financial crime. A spokeswoman for the Trump organization described the report as “outright nonsense”. There was also no statement from Kushner Companies.