The German police union (GdP) has criticized the country’s government departments for not yet having clearly allocated powers to trace the assets of sanctioned oligarchs. “There is no agency in Germany that looks for sanctioned assets, criminals or suspects,” union president Frank Buckenhofer said on Thursday, August 18, in an interview with broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk.

The law on the implementation of sanctions, adopted in May, does not define clear powers in this matter, Bukkenhofer said. “In general, it is said that it is a matter of federal lands, although sanctions are an instrument of foreign policy and, in essence, they are the responsibility of the federal authorities”, the head of the GdP also stressed.

The GdP called for the creation of a financial police

At the same time, according to Frank Bukkenhofer, state authorities know that a second law on the implementation of sanctions is due to be adopted in the autumn, in which it is planned to entrust this area again to the German federation. “So one can imagine how active the lands are in this case,” added Bukkenhofer.

At the same time, he asked the German authorities to establish a financial police on the model of the Italian one. It can be created in no time from customs power units, Frank Bukkenhofer is sure. “Then it would be possible to have access to the errant billions, which violate the fair market order and which are available to the people who received them in an absolutely illegal way,” he added.

Law of Enforcement of First Sanctions

After a significant expansion of the EU sanctions list in response to the war in Ukraine, Germany passed a law on the application of sanctions, aimed at facilitating cooperation and information exchange between various agencies that monitor compliance with restrictive measures. It forces sanctioned companies and individuals to report their assets to the German authorities. Violations are punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to one year.

The law also extended the powers of a number of agencies, such as the Central Office for the Investigation of Financial Transactions (Financial Intelligence Unit, FIU) and the Federal German Bank (Bundesbank). Its employees can now search apartments and company premises, interrogate witnesses and ask banks for information about account holders and securities.