Police in Frankfurt have arrested three people in connection with a suspected scheme to avoid taxation on emissions trading, a state prosecutor said Thursday, according to dpa. In nationwide raids on Wednesday, which included the headquarters of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, the country's financial capital, and offices of energy giant RWE, some 230 premises were searched. Frankfurt prosecutor Guenter Wittig gave no further details regarding the investigations, but said that examination of confiscated mobile phones, laptops and hard-drives could take months. The investigation concerns some 50 companies and over 150 suspects, who are thought to have bought carbon credits from abroad and resold them through interconnected companies in Germany without declaring or paying the appropriate sales tax, according to the prosecutor. The last link in the chain of companies is then thought to have resold the carbon certificates abroad, entitling them to sales tax reimbursements from the government. Many of the suspected tax evaders are thought to have conducted the business via accounts held with Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest financial institution. A spokesman for the bank was quoted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper saying "we are supporting the state prosecutors with their investigation." The amount claimed to have been lost to the tax authorities was some 180 million euros (237 million euros).
