Status: 09/15/2022 12:57 p.m
The number of corruption offenses recorded in Germany rose by almost 35 percent last year. This emerges from a report by the BKA. There were also more cases of forgery, fraud or treason.
The police registered significantly more corruption offenses in 2021 than a year earlier. The number rose by almost 35 percent to 7433 offenses, as announced by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Wiesbaden. At the same time, there were also more accompanying crimes such as fraud, forgery of documents and violations of official secrecy. Their number increased by more than ten percent, as can be seen from the new annual federal situation report on corruption.
The increase was therefore due to the fact that several extensive investigations with many individual offenses were being conducted nationwide. Such developments led statistically to strong fluctuations.
2457 suspects last year
The number of suspects in corruption offenses rose in 2021 both on the recipient side (+11.1 percent) and on the donor side (+14.9 percent). The term “giver” stands for the briber, and the term “receiver” refers to the bribed. The total number of suspects in 2021 was 2,457 men and women, around 13 percent higher than in the previous year.
amount of damage decreased
As can also be seen from the statistics, in 2021 the amount of damage registered as a result of cases of corruption fell by almost a quarter to 61 million euros year-on-year (2020: 81 million euros). In this regard, too, large-scale proceedings could cause significant statistical fluctuations, the investigators explained for classification.
The BKA pointed out that corruption does not only cause economic damage. “It damages the basic trust of the citizens in the independence, incorruptibility and ability of the state to act and the integrity of the economy.”