Berlin’s leafy Kurfürstendamm boulevard looks like an upmarket shopping street but is, in fact, Germany’s largest money laundry.
Unlike most other European countries, Germany has no upper limit on cash payments, meaning wads of high-value notes are used every day to buy jewellery, furs, cars, horses, art, property and even gold bars. Lindner’s plan to get serious about money laundering comes as estimates of the hole in his next federal budget fluctuate between €11 billion and €25 billion.
In the years since, as Italy tightened up its money-laundering laws, leading mafia investigators say organised crime families have moved much of their financial activity north: into German property, casinos and restaurants.
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