German prosecutors have raided Commerzbank’s commercial offices across Germany over allegations of tax evasion by clients with accounts in Luxembourg.
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Cologne’s chief prosecutor, Ulrich Bremer said that raids included over 130 tax investigators and 20 police officers.
According to the investigators, employees at Commerzbank’s Luxembourg unit were suspected of having assisted tax evasion relating to earnings made by banking clients in Luxembourg.
Commerzbank said that it was co-operating actively and comprehensively with the investigations, which involved old cases dating back 10 years or more.
The bank added it will snub relationships with clients whose tax status hasn’t been cleared.
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By GlobalDataProsecutors in Cologne said they were investigating parties suspected of hiding capital gains with Luxembourg banks and they also refused to provide the identities of the people and institutions involved.
"We will investigate these cases internally and deal with them in co-operation with the investigating authorities. We demand absolute transparency that all our clients in Luxemburg have a clarified tax status," the bank added.
"Investigations are directed against taxable persons who in order to systematically evade corporate tax acquired offshore holdings so as to conceal capital earnings at their Luxembourg-based banks," Bremer added.
German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung previously reported that more than 150 German prosecutors, tax inspectors and detectives had searched Commerzbank’s Frankfurt headquarters as part of a probe into alleged tax evasion.
