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HypoVereinsbank raided by police for tax fraud

German prosecutors and tax police have raided the offices of HypoVereinsbank, the German arm of Italian bank UniCredit, on suspicion of tax fraud, the bank and prosecutors said on Thursday.

Published: 29 November 2012 11:28 CET
HypoVereinsbank raided by police for tax fraud
Photo: DPA

“The offices of UniCredit Bank AG (HypoVereinsbank) in Munich were searched yesterday (Wednesday) on the orders of the public prosecutors in Frankfurt, who are investigating suspicions of tax evasion,” the bank said in a statement.

A spokesman for prosecutors told AFP the raids were carried out by 60-70 officers at 13 different premises, both business and private, around the country. He declined to reveal any further details.

HypoVereinsbank explained that the tax authorities were questioning the award of capital gains tax credits in connection with share transactions carried out between 2006 and 2008 shortly before annual dividend payments were due.

The bank insisted it is cooperating with the authorities and keen to clear up the allegations.

A report in the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung put the estimated loss to the tax authorities at €124 million ($161 million).

HypoVereinsbank is Germany’s sixth-biggest bank and was acquired by UniCredit at the end of 2005.

AFP/mry

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CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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