Deutsche Bank shares sink 4 percent after police reportedly raid offices

Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Statues stand outside a Deutsche Bank AG branch in Frankfurt, Germany.

German police conducted a search of Deutsche Bank’s offices in Frankfurt on Thursday, amid allegations of money laundering against the country’s flagship lender.

The investigations are directed against two Deutsche Bank staff members, with both accused of helping clients set up off-shore businesses to launder money gained from criminal deeds.

Shares of the bank slipped toward the bottom of the European benchmark on the news, down more than 4 percent.

“It is true that the police are currently investigating different locations of our bank in Germany. It’s about a case related to the Panama Papers,” Deutsche Bank said in statement Thursday, according to a Google translation.

“We will communicate as soon as we have more details. We will cooperate fully with the authorities,” the bank said.

The Panama Papers scandal refers to a leak of millions of documents to the media by Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca in April 2016. It triggered a global scandal after showing how the rich and powerful allegedly used offshore companies to evade taxes.

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