On 20 February 2024 the Prosecutor General’s Office in Berlin announced the discovery of a large Russian-Eurasian money laundering network.
According to the aforementioned agency, it may be about the illegal cash flows of tens of millions of euros, the true origin of which was concealed.
As part of this investigation, employees of the German investigative authorities searched 58 residential and commercial premises in the federal states of Berlin, Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg and Saxony. In addition, searches were also conducted in Latvia and Malta – with the support of local investigators, Eurojust and Europol. During the searches, business documents, electronic data carriers and mobile phones had been retrieved.
In the case of 11 defendants aged 31 to 58 years, no other details about them are reported. According to the investigation, no later than July 2021, they created a network of companies based on a Maltese financial institution, with numerous front managers, to engage in money laundering. Investigators believe that the group mainly operated from Berlin and Riga.
It is known that one defendant has already been detained in Brandenburg – a 53-year-old man. Funds in eight Maltese accounts have been frozen.
Parallel investigative actions in Latvia and Germany in this case had been facilitated by the the establishment in of a joint German-Latvian investigative team in December 2023.
