The Swiss national Daniel Thelesklaf will become the new boss at the German Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) at the beginning of July 2023. A lawyer by profession, he has decades of experience in combating financial crime. He currently works at the United Nations as project manager of the Finance against Slavery and Human Trafficking (FAST) initiative. German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Thelesklaf should push ahead with the reforms of the FIU that have already begun.
The investigators would have to be strengthened, and the digitalization of the authority would have to be pushed forward, the German finance minister said recently. He admitted to seeing significant problems in the fight against money laundering, mainly due to unprocessed suspicious cases at the FIU. In December, the previous head of the FIU, Christof Schulte, was relieved of his duties.
The FIU is currently organized as a special customs unit in Germany. It collects and analyzes SARs under the Money Laundering Act and forwards the data and information to law enforcement agencies. However, there have been repeated problems in this process.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has examined and criticized Germany’s system against money laundering, terrorist financing, and the financing of weapons of mass destruction. As a result, Lindner has announced a reorganization of the fight against money laundering and financial crime. A Federal Financial Crime Authority (German: Bundesoberbehörde zur Bekämpfung der Finanzkriminalität, BBF) will be established, of which the FIU will be a pillar.
