Why did senior Deutsche Bank executive William S. Broeksmit commit suicide in 2014? Broeksmit was the brilliant derivatives strategist who helped make Deutsche Bank an investment banking powerhouse prior to the global financial meltdown of 2008. Broeksmit was a friend and confidant of then-CEO Anshu Jain and was seen to be Mr. Jain’s eyes and ears when it came to tracking various trading positions and risk exposures. But the bank and Broeksmit became ensnared in numerous investigations pertaining to potential criminal activity with respect to LIBOR fixing and illegal trading. And the unthinkable happened:
"But on Jan. 26, 2014, instead of meeting his wife and son for lunch, Mr. Broeksmit slung a dog leash over a door in his London home, and hanged himself from it. Left by his side was a neat stack of company documents related to Deutsche’s New York banking operations, and suicide notes addressed to relatives, as well as one to Mr. Jain."
What was the content of the suicide notes and which "company documents related to Deutsche’s New York banking operations" were on the floor beneath Broeksmit's hanging body?
More information about this tragedy and Deutsche Bank's perfidy is coming to light after Broeksmit's son turned over all his father's e-mails and other documents to the newspaper Die Welt. Today the paper published a short article that raises some interesting questions (my translation):
Broeksmit had hung himself in January 2014 and left behind several suicide notes, including one to the former CEO of Deutsche Bank Anshu Jain. Scattered around were a number of internal papers of Deutsche Bank. The documents belonged to a New York unit of the bank — the DBTCA. This DB entity had made available loans of several hundred million dollars to Donald J. Trump and several family members, even though Trump had failed to repay Deutsche Bank some large loans. The DBTCA also was the focus of an investigation into a money-laundering scheme. Deutsche Bank had laundered $10 billion for Russian customers. At this time it is not clear where the documents found next to Broeksmit are.
DBTCA stands for Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas - the same DB unit -as Die Welt points out - that had loaned Donald J. Trump and "several family members" more than three hundred million dollars even though the bank had sued Trump for non-payment of other debt obligations. That same unit was later fined $425 million by the New York State Department of Financial Services for laundering $10 billion out of Russia through a scheme involving DB's Moscow Branch. Were the Trump loans somehow tied to the Russian money-laundering scheme? Unfortunately the whereabouts of the documents found at Broeksmit's house are "unclear". Deutsche Bank is by far the largest bank creditor to Trump — by the late 1980’s Trump’s business practices were widely known in New York, and none of the banks would lend to him. Why Deutsche Bank did — even after being burned by Trump — is a mystery. But a mystery that may yet be solved with the help of William Broeksmit’s son.
