For more than two years, we have been delivering information about bank accounts of Deutsche Handelsbank used for scamming people to the German authorities.

When we were working on the #Wirecard money laundering complaint (back in January 2020), it was evident that some of the scammers used both Wirecard and Deutsche Handelsbank (both located in Munich, Germany) for their activities. Some of the big guys from criminal organizations opened up bank accounts with Wirecard.

We also realized that Deutsche Handelsbank became the preferred place for (mainly FCA licensed) payment institutions and e-many companies. These companies opened up their payment accounts for their scamming merchants.

The criminal files for GAL BARAK and partners show the money flows from the victims to the scammers in great detail. And often,  companies like PPRO Financial Ltd, Connectum Ltd, Powercash21 Ltd with accounts with Deutsche Handelsbank showed up. In addition, the victims represented by us sent us their payment slips for the losses experienced, and we learned that scams like 24option or YESoption also used Deutsche Handelsbank bank accounts for deposits from the victims. So millions of victims’ money were transferred via Deutsche Handelsbank´s accounts to scammers worldwide.

 

Too many high-risk merchants/scammers

In December 2020, we finally filed a summarizing criminal complaint regarding #DeutscheHandelsbank and some of its main customers with the Munich prosecutor. They acted in April 2021 and raided the premises of Deutsche Handelsbank. Like Kobenhavn Andelskasse – another example of a small European bank that scammers more or less hijacked – Deutsche Handelsbank probably had problems in showing positive results. Hence, the bank started to onboard questionable and shady customers.

On July 7th, 2021, Deutsche Handelsbank announced closing the payment services business line. It is a further small but essential step to make it more difficult for the scammers to launder their money in Germany.

So, guys, this is good news for us!