Two top Democratic US senators called for the Senate to open an investigation into Germany’s Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) over its compliance with US anti-money laundering and bank secrecy laws.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen said in a statement that they had written to the chair of the Senate Banking Committee asking for the probe in light of investigations into the bank by European authorities that called into question its compliance controls.
A spokeswoman for Mike Crapo, the Republican chair of the Senate Banking committee who has the power to approve a probe, declined to comment.
A spokesman for Deutsche Bank said the bank takes its legal obligations seriously and is prepared to cooperate with any official investigations.
Thursday’s request adds pressure to the bank, which is already facing police probes in Germany and likely is to face official congressional scrutiny in the United States when Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in January.
Police raided six Deutsche Bank offices in and around Frankfurt last month over money laundering allegations linked to the “Panama Papers.” Investigators are looking into the activities of two unnamed Deutsche Bank employees alleged to have helped clients set up offshore firms to launder money, the prosecutor’s office said at the time.
Deutsche Bank said at the time of the raids that it would cooperate closely with the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office, adding it believed it had already provided all the relevant information related to the “Panama Papers”.
