The Berlin public prosecutor’s office has closed its investigations into the board of directors of the Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) in connection with the payment of emergency corona aid. The authorities said on Thursday that those affected could not be accused of any criminally relevant misconduct. The “Berliner Morgenpost” had previously reported.
According to a spokeswoman, the public prosecutor had been investigating suspected infidelity or abetting infidelity since June 30, 2020. The background to this was numerous cases of fraud in connection with the payment of the Corona emergency aid.
From the point of view of the public prosecutor’s office, however, these are not to be attributed to the accused at IBB, but “to fraudulent actions by third parties who caused payments by providing incorrect information”.
After an extensive examination, no “infringing behavior” could be identified – neither by those responsible at the bank nor by employees who were involved in designing the emergency aid program, it said.
In view of the “exceptional situation caused by corona”, the conscious decision to enable help quickly and unbureaucratically and thus to refrain from an in-depth examination of the applications before the emergency aid is paid out, subject to a subsequent examination and reclaim, is not objectionable.
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Nevertheless, according to the report of the “Berliner Morgenpost” according to the final note of the public prosecutor’s office, there were examinations: In the period from March 27th to May 31st, 2020, a total of 245,677 applications were made. A total of 31,916 were rejected.
