About 70 prosecutors and financial investigators raided Deutsche Bank's Frankfurt headquarters on Wednesday, targeting suspected tax evasion linked to so-called cum-cum trades carried out by its subsidiary Postbank. The operation, led by authorities from Düsseldorf, is centred on a case dubbed Project Riesling.
Ten former senior Postbank managers are under investigation for alleged joint tax fraud. The suspicious transactions were executed between 2008 and 2010 through a British investment bank, and the resulting false corporate tax filings caused an estimated loss of more than 350 million euros to the German treasury.
Cum-cum trades involve lending shares to foreign parties before dividend dates to reclaim tax credits improperly. Authorities estimate the practice has cost Germany's tax authority roughly 28 billion euros in total. Deutsche Bank acquired Postbank in 2019.