Cum-ex stores: searches in Hamburg | tagesschau.de

The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne searches for information from WDR and SZ tax authorities and living spaces in Hamburg. The ex-SPD politician Kahrs and a former interior senator of the Hanseatic city are also affected. You are said to have helped the private bank MM Warburg to keep illegally stolen tax money.

The investigators from North Rhine-Westphalia moved for information from WDR and “Süddeutscher Zeitung” in the morning: They appeared inconspicuous, did without flashing lights and uniformed police. The investigators headed for the Hamburg tax office for large companies and private apartments. They had a search warrant in their pockets. The investigation is directed against a tax officer, as well as against two former greats of the Hamburg SPD: Johannes Kahrs, once budget spokesman in the Bundestag as well as the influential “Seeheimer Kreis” and a former interior senator of the Hanseatic city of Hamburg.

Two days after the general election, the Hamburg Social Democrats are caught up in the cum-ex scandal. The suspicion of the public prosecutor’s office in Cologne: The aforementioned politicians and public servants are said to have helped the Hamburg private bank MM Warburg that 47 million euros in tax money from illegal cum-ex transactions were not reclaimed by the Hamburg tax authorities at the time. Money that was only paid back by Warburg Bank after a judgment by the Bonn Regional Court. Anyone who helps a criminal to secure the benefits of an act makes himself liable to prosecution. In the penal code this is recorded as “favoritism” – and can be punished with up to five years imprisonment.

It’s about sums of millions from the treasury that Warburg bankers and their accomplices have had reimbursed through cum-ex deals, even though they had never paid the tax before. A handle in the tax bag, for which the Bonn Regional Court sentenced the bank to repay the crime last year. The judgment is now final.

Initial suspicion of beneficiary

The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne confirmed the searches on request and spoke of an initial suspicion of beneficiary. There are indications of criminally relevant behavior of the accused in connection with cum-ex deals. Since the morning, the corresponding search warrants of the Cologne District Court of September 22, 2021 have been implemented. The authority did not comment on the names of individual participants. The tax authorities and the accused could not be reached at short notice.

With their search measures, the investigators are now examining the questions that are now occupying an investigative committee in Hamburg and also accompanying the SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz through his federal election campaign. Have the tax authorities deliberately spared the Hamburg Warburg Bank? And: Did politics help? Scholz and the then Hamburg Senator for Finance and today’s First Mayor Peter Tschentscher have vehemently denied these allegations. Neither is there any investigation against either.

The diaries of Christian Olearius, co-owner of the private bank, provided the investigators with initial suspicions about what might have happened behind the scenes after the tax office was preparing to demand cum-ex money back from the Warburg Bank in 2016. Investigators from the Rhine had found the diaries during a raid. During the evaluation of the personal notes, the investigators came across a possible attempted influence on the Hamburg financial administration – using the best political contacts.

The banker recorded in his diary who he had contacted after the first Cum-Ex raid in his bank in early 2016: the Social Democrats Kahrs and a former interior senator. Both are said to have signaled their support in the matter. According to the records, the former interior senator is said to have campaigned for meetings with the then mayor Scholz. Kahrs, in turn, is said to have tried before the banking supervisory authority Bafin and the Federal Ministry of Finance. However, it was initially unsuccessful, Kahrs reported at the end of 2016.

Even the best political contacts, it seemed at first, were ineffective. In November 2016, the responsible tax officer at the Hamburg tax office for large companies wrote a 28-page note that the cum-ex funds would have to be reclaimed. Tax auditors at the Warburg Bank had also urgently advised them to do so. But then something strange happened. Only a few days later, after a meeting in the Hamburg Ministry of Finance, the officer deviated from her elaborately justified assessment and waived the recovery of the 47 million euros. This U-turn in particular raises questions.

On the one hand, the investigators are investigating the question of whether the tax officer had a personal connection to the bank. The officer denies this and also that she was influenced.

Finally, the public prosecutor’s office checks whether political influence was the reason for the change of opinion. Because the then Finance Senator Tschentscher had instructed with his green ministerial ink on a document that he wanted to be kept up to date in the Warburg case. Scholz was also in the picture – as he later gradually admitted to the finance committee. He met Olearius three times, and the tax procedure was also an issue. Scholz and Tschentscher decidedly deny any political influence – as did Olearius. For her part, the tax officer testified that she had never been influenced. The tax office later explained the back and forth by saying that there had been legal uncertainties and major litigation risks.

The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne is apparently questioning the portrayal of the tax officer and the role of Kahrs and a former interior senator, who are said to have used their contacts to open the doors to the bank. In the end, the Hamburg tax authorities waived the repayment of the millions even after the scandal had long been public knowledge and the public prosecutor was already investigating those responsible at the bank. Actually, there is a legal recourse provided for such a tax procedure. Investigators are puzzled that the bank has tried to address its tax problem elsewhere in parallel.

Anne Brorhilker, Chief Public Prosecutor in Cologne, had already applied for the raid to the investigating judge a year ago – it was stopped in-house for the first time. After the case was examined by the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Justice, the prosecutor was now allowed to act. The question of why the investigation was delayed for more than a year remains open.