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Has Germany become a haven for economic crimes?

2026-01-28 22:07:23Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA BENJAMIN KNIGHT
Has Germany become a haven for economic crimes?
Frankfurt

Germany lacks thousands of public prosecutors to effectively combat financial crime, the German Association of Judges (DRB) has warned. It said criminals in the world of money and economics, as well as real mafia organizations, have it too easy in Germany because there are not enough state prosecutors and judges to handle all the cases.

"Billions of euros are slipping away from the German federal states because they are too focused on personnel costs in the investigative bodies," DRB director Sven Rebehn told the Funke newspaper in late December. "Every additional euro invested in hiring more investigators for a more effective fight against financial and economic crime would ultimately bring more euros into the state coffers."

Rebehn estimates that Germany is short of around 2,000 state prosecutors and warns that around a million open cases are still uninvestigated. In addition, many such illegal actions have a relatively short statute of limitations, which makes life a nightmare for criminals even if they are caught with their hands in the - usually state coffers.

Such robberies are organized by a veritable army of experts.

The thesis that Germany is a "paradise for financial crime" has been heard several times, where it has to be said that it took years for the competent services to understand the scale of the financial operations of organized criminal groups. Cases like Wirecard and CumEx have cost the country billions of euros.

Jacob Wende, a lawyer specializing in financial law and director of Regpi, a company that deals with financial crime protection, believes that the problem is not just a lack of state lawyers, but a lack of training at all levels. Because it is not uncommon for such robberies to be organized by a veritable army of legal and tax experts, with whom state authorities rarely know how to keep up: "We are certainly far below our capabilities," Wende told DW.

"We need more people, but also people who are better trained in all areas - among state lawyers, in the courts and in oversight bodies."

This is particularly problematic because these forms of crime are, as Wende says, a "moving target." "There is no single method that organized criminals use. They are constantly adapting, they are constantly looking for gaps in the system, and they will always look to exploit those gaps."

The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing

An additional problem is the fragmentation of institutions in Germany. There is a large and unaccountable number of judicial and investigative bodies in the 16 federal states, and each of them often deals with different types of financial crime in different areas.

Kilian Wegner, professor of sustainable economic law at the University of Halle, says there are more than 300 supervisory bodies operating across the country in areas such as gambling or precious metals trading, many of which are looking for more skilled people. "It is very difficult to determine whether there is information in any of these bodies that could be relevant to a money laundering investigation in another area," Wegner told DW. "Each one does its own part separately, which leads to a huge loss of information."

Anne Brorhilker is one of the people who knows these problems firsthand. She was a top state prosecutor in Cologne for two decades and became famous throughout Germany for investigating the CumEx fraud scheme, in which banks and stockbrokers siphoned billions of euros from state coffers across Europe in a financial “game” of apparent ownership changes when dividend taxes were due. Germany alone is estimated to have lost around 30 billion euros.

Documents circulate, but the crime is not investigated

The main problem, according to Brorhilker, is not the number of state prosecutors, but the excessive bureaucracy in these institutions. Because there may be enough people on paper, but there are very few who are actually involved in criminal prosecution: "We have a lot of people in management and administration, but few who actually do the work," she told DW.

"It's true that we don't have enough state prosecutors conducting investigations and taking cases to court, but they could allocate staff differently in advance."

She also believes that the structure of the judicial system encourages state prosecutors to deal with easier cases with a high chance of success. Of course, it is easier and faster to conclude the procedure in a banal case of shoplifting, even if it hardly has any social impact. "The professional criminals who cause the greatest damage to society get away with it easily," she warns. Brorhilker left the judiciary in 2024 and became one of the leaders of the non-governmental organization "Finanzwende". It is an organization that advocates changing the way the state fights financial crime and opposes the influence of financial lobbies.

Concrete example: a suitcase full of money

Brorhilker ishte e zemëruar nga mungesa e komunikimit midis institucioneve shtetërore: "Le të themi se dikush kapet në aeroport me një sasi të madhe parash në një çantë. Oficerët e doganave në pikën kufitare e zbulojnë atë dhe përfundimisht i informojnë eprorët e tyre për këtë. Pastaj zvarritet si një shkelje doganore sepse ata, si rregull, nuk ia përcjellin fare administratës tatimore. Edhe kur rrethanat flasin vetë, ata shpesh as nuk e informojnë policinë."

Ndërsa organet e ndjekjes penale bëjnë secili pjesën e tyre të punës, ka shumë evazion fiskal dhe pastrim parash në të njëjtën kohë, dhe grupet e organizuara dhe të njëjtët njerëz shpesh qëndrojnë pas kësaj. Ndërsa policia, për shembull, po përpiqet të kapë trafikantët e drogës, paratë e drogës tashmë po kalojnë nën radarin e administratës tatimore. Dhe para se hetuesit tatimorë të kuptojnë se çfarë ka ndodhur, paratë tashmë janë pastruar dhe kështu bien nën juridiksionin e një institucioni krejtësisht të ndryshëm.

Vende të tjera e organizojnë këtë punë në mënyrë më efektive. Në Evropë, Italia ka shumë përvojë - por edhe efikasitet: krimi tatimor, doganor dhe financiar, për të gjitha këto vetëm një organ mund të jetë përgjegjës.

Të paktën 100 miliardë euro humbasin çdo vit

Është e vështirë të vlerësohet edhe shkalla e dëmit të shkaktuar nga krimi financiar. Gjyqtarja Rebehn vlerëson se rreth 100 miliardë euro "pastrohen" çdo vit në Gjermani, por kjo shumë, e cila shpesh citohet në median gjermane, bazohet në një studim të Universitetit të Halle-s nga viti 2016 në të cilin përfundimet nxirren mbi bazën e rasteve të njohura. Niveli aktual nuk është përcaktuar kurrë.

Politikanët tashmë, si rregull, theksojnë vendosmërinë e tyre në luftën kundër problemit. Dhe qeveria e Kancelarit Friedrich Merz njoftoi korrikun e kaluar se do t'u paguante 240 milionë euro shteteve federale për punësimin e 2,000 gjyqtarëve dhe prokurorëve të shtetit shtesë.

Por tashmë është treguar se të gjitha përpjekjet për reformë gjithëpërfshirëse për ta bërë të gjithë sistemin më të thjeshtë janë jashtëzakonisht të vështira dhe pothuajse të pashpresa.

Lufta kundër burokracisë

Kjo u bë e qartë kur qeveria e ish-kancelarit Olaf Scholz u përpoq të krijonte një organ qendror kundër pastrimit të parave. "Një mosmarrëveshje e madhe shpërtheu menjëherë," tha Wegner i Universitetit të Halle-s.

"Nën mbikëqyrjen e kujt duhet të jetë kjo agjenci? Byroja Federale e Hetimit, Shërbimi i Hetimit Doganor? Në nivelin e federatës apo të landeve? Dhe nëse landet, sa do të merrte njëra, sa do të merrte tjetra? Askush nuk mund të vendoste se ku duhet të futej ky organ i ri në atë mozaik të madh." Në fund, plani u braktis.

The deeper problem with financial crime, Wegner believes, lies in the culture that prevails in much of the German judiciary: "A specialized career is not valued very much," he says. "If you want to advance and have a higher salary, you have to change jobs every few years: two or three years working on capital crimes, then two or three years working in the ministry and then the same amount of time on narcotics. That's the typical path to a successful career because otherwise you are considered too 'buried' in just one field."

This rigid culture of thinking, Brorhilker concludes, is the main problem of the German judiciary. And it will not be solved simply by increasing the budget and the number of employees./ DW


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

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