Formerly the most powerful public prosecutor in the country: How the traffic light coalition wanted to enable tax evasion

FR Formerly the most powerful public prosecutor in the country: How the traffic light coalition wanted to enable tax evasion Article by Claus-Jürgen Göpfert • 1 hour • 3 minutes reading time In her new role as co-director of the Finanzwende association, Anne Brorhilker is calling for the fight against financial crime. Until April, she was considered the most powerful public prosecutor in Germany. Then she resigned. On Saturday (November 9), Anne Brorhilker came to Frankfurt in her new role. As co-director of the Finanzwende association, she called on people to organize themselves in the fight against economic crime. "If you join forces, you can achieve a lot!" she said at an event organized by the Business Crime Control (BCC) association. The 51-year-old sharply criticized the fact that the judicial authorities in Germany are too weak to combat economic criminals. "We have too few judges and too few public prosecutors." Anne Brorhilker investigated Cum-Ex: Taxpayers' losses at 40 billion euros Until she retired from public service, Brorhilker had been a pioneer against Cum-Ex and Cum-Cum crime for eleven years. These tricks had allowed German and foreign banks to obtain tax refunds from the tax office that they were not entitled to. The lawyer put the damage caused to taxpayers at around 40 billion euros. She had "heard nothing" from the dismissed Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) about this sum for the largest economic crime in post-war history. Courts have so far only been able to recover less than one percent of the damage caused through their rulings. With a petition that has so far been signed by 327,000 people, the Finanzwende association is fighting against the federal government's new bureaucracy relief law. This is intended to enable companies to destroy documents relating to their business practices after just eight years – while serious tax evasion only expires after 15 years. However, the legislature recently postponed the validity of this regulation for banks and financial funds by one year. "That gives us hope!" said Brorhilker. The bureaucracy reduction law is in fact "a sham". In fact, "evidence should be destroyed". In a conversation with the FR before the event, the former investigator discussed the motives for her involvement in Finanzwende. "Many people have a feeling of powerlessness that not enough is being done to combat financial crime". This is "a dangerous starting point." People are channeling their anger "into other channels", said Brorhilker, referring to the successes of right-wing extremist forces in Germany. The only thing that can help against this is publicity: "That seems to me to be the only lever." The former public prosecutor has already appeared in public several times and spoke of "super interest" in her events. Unequal resources: This is how investigations into financial crime are made more difficult According to her, the judicial authorities in Germany are currently conducting investigations into Cum-Ex and Cum-Cum against 1,800 suspects. "However, there is a huge dark field." Brorhilker opened one of the first investigations into Cum-Ex in Cologne in 2013. The Hessian Attorney General's Office had already taken action. The lawyer pointed to the very skewed balance of power between the financial sector in Germany and the people who are committed to fighting financial crime. "The resources are unequally distributed." The ten largest financial companies in Germany invested 42 million euros a year in their lobbying activities in the political sphere alone. In contrast, the Finanzwende association, for example, has just 30 employees. Brorhilker called for the public register of lobbying activities to be significantly expanded and tightened. More transparency is needed. For example, it is important for the public to know who has worked on draft laws. Olaf Scholz involved in Cum-Ex: Resistance to the investigation The former public prosecutor is, as she made clear at the event, subject to official secrecy about individual investigations and cases. She therefore did not want to comment in detail on the Cum-Ex proceedings in connection with the private Warburg Bank in Hamburg. The city of Hamburg had waived the bank's obligation to repay the state a double-digit million sum that it had earned through Cum-Ex tricks. There had apparently been meetings beforehand between the spokesman for the Warburg Bank, Christian Olearius, and the then mayor of Hamburg and current Chancellor Olaf Scholz. While Olearius recorded the contacts in his diary, Scholz claims he cannot remember. Brorhilker said to the audience in the Dominican monastery in Frankfurt: Brorhilker simply said to the audience in the Dominican monastery in Frankfurt: "It was all in the diary!" And continued: "It was obvious that the Warburg Bank had political support." The proceedings against Olearius were dropped because of the banker's poor health, "not because of a lack of evidence," said the lawyer. She also reported considerable resistance to her previous investigative work as a public prosecutor. "I was personally discredited and portrayed as a strange person who had problems with people."