The object of the prosecutors' interests is the so-called Central Unit for the Supervision of Financial Transactions (FIU), over which the Ministry of Finance exercises supervision.
More specifically, the raids concern suspicious money transfers totaling several million euros, which could be linked to arms and drug trafficking and terrorist financing, according to the prosecutor's office.
FIU is said to have received the banks' tips, but not forwarded them to the police or prosecutors.
Both FIU and the Financial Supervisory Authority Bafin have previously been criticized for not having acted on warning signals in connection with the fraud scheme surrounding the payment service company Wirecard.
The purpose of the raid was to investigate whether a crime may have been committed, and if so, who is responsible.
Blames Scholz
The head of the Ministry of Finance is the Social Democratic chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, who is leading the opinion polls ahead of the election in just over two weeks.
He is now receiving criticism from other parties.
- The chaos at FIU has existed since the Ministry of Finance took over responsibility, says Lisa Paus and Irene Mihalic from the Greens in a joint statement.
Eckhardt Rehberg from the CDU tells the online newspaper T-online that Scholz and his party comrade Minister of Justice Christine Lambrecht can be held politically responsible for the events.
Supports the investigation
Scholz himself believes that if the prosecutors had questions, they could have put them in writing, reports Die Welt.
The Ministry of Finance announces in a statement that it fully supports the investigation.
Prosecutors started the investigation after it was revealed that a report from a bank on a suspicious transaction of over one million euros to Africa 2018, was not followed up.