Finance Minister Lindner says Germany is enhancing its customs service to play a crucial AML role

According to German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, German customs will be strengthened to play a crucial role in the fight against organized crime and money laundering, and illegally obtained assets will be seized.

He announced steps to combat organized crime and money laundering that will be put into place by the second quarter of 2025 during a news briefing and declared that "Customs will become even more powerful, specialized, and efficient with the new strategy."

According to Lindner, "the objective is to identify technical developments on the perpetrator side at an early stage and to be able to counter this successfully."

In financial investigations, customs will be crucial in locating assets that were acquired illegally and revealing money laundering.

Lindner declared, "My motto is don’t raise taxes, but enforce laws."

Despite being one of the largest cash centers in the world, Germany received criticism from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) last year for not doing enough to combat money laundering and convicting few people for the crime.

In order to tackle money laundering and financial crimes, Lindner announced last year that Germany will establish a Federal Financial Criminal Police Office, which would go into operation in 2024. The conceptual and legislative work should be finished this year, according to Lindner.

By fLEXI tEAM