Police seize 100,000 euros in cash. The owner has no personal income, remains silent about the origin of the money, but is suspected of having contact with organized crime. With this fictional but not unrealistic scenario, Berlin’s Justice Senator Felor Badenberg illustrated the limits of current law on Thursday. Proceedings would be initiated on suspicion of money laundering. However, they would have to be discontinued if proof cannot be provided. “Even if everything points to illegality, the money must be returned,” the CDU politician said in the Berlin House of Representatives.

According to the Senate’s plans, this is set to change. A corresponding legislative initiative by the state of Berlin to reverse the burden of proof has been moving through the Bundesrat since last week. The legal affairs committee of the federal chamber approved it on Wednesday, Badenberg continued. If the law comes into force, suspects will have to prove that their assets originate from legal sources when the amount or value is grossly disproportionate to their legal income. Otherwise, the assets can be confiscated even without proof of a crime.

Reversal of the burden of proof: Greens see proposal as “not entirely unproblematic”

The senator sees this as the basis for consistent and legally secure confiscation of incriminated assets. However, far from everyone in Berlin politics is convinced of this, as became clear during the House of Representatives debate on Thursday.

The Green parliamentary group would, in principle, welcome a capable and strong rule of law, said its legal policy spokesperson Petra Vandrey. “However, rule-of-law standards are the basis of any reform.” The Senate’s proposal is “not entirely unproblematic,” as it could potentially affect the presumption of innocence. “We must not succumb to the temptation to abolish rule-of-law principles.”

We must not succumb to the temptation to abolish rule-of-law principles.

Petra Vandrey, Legal policy spokesperson of the Green parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives

Organized crime groups earn millions through drugs, human trafficking, cigarette smuggling, protection rackets, theft, and fraud. In most cases, this involves large amounts of cash that must then be reintroduced into the legal economy. For a long time, the German real estate market in particular was well suited for money laundering.

Stricter rules for the use of cash in real estate and deposits

However, several legal loopholes were closed three years ago. Since April 2023, cash payments for real estate purchases have been prohibited. In all other areas, dealers or notaries must record the customer’s identity for amounts of 10,000 euros or more. For cash deposits of this amount or more, proof of origin is required.

There are still high hurdles for confiscating property that has already been purchased with dirty money. In the summer of 2018, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office unexpectedly seized 77 properties attributed to the Remmo clan and its associates. At the time, their total value was just under nine million euros. Those affected challenged the seizure in court. After individual rulings in favor of the state were made beginning in 2020, the decisive decision came in March 2025: the Berlin Regional Court declared the confiscation of 58 of the 77 properties legally binding.

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The two women to whom the 58 properties officially belonged had already been under investigation since 2015 on suspicion of money laundering. In 2021, the investigation was discontinued due to a lack of evidence. However, the Regional Court used the instrument of “independent confiscation.” This allows assets to be confiscated without criminal proceedings if the court is convinced that they are incriminated—that is, acquired through criminal acts. The alleged Remmo frontwomen would have had to prove the opposite, which they failed to do.

Bundesrat initiative aims to allow asset confiscation even without court proceedings

Berlin’s Bundesrat initiative essentially aims to make this possible in the future without courts. The declared goal is to strike organized crime structures where it supposedly “hurts”: at the money. “Anyone who drives an expensive car with little income will in future have to prove where it came from, otherwise it’s gone,” Jan Lehmann summarized. The legal policy spokesperson of the Berlin SPD parliamentary group also located the intended changes in civil law. “The presumption of innocence does not apply here.” Senator Badenberg called the plan “required by the rule of law and constitutionally sound.”

The Left Party also showed itself generally open to such a regulation. “The Senate is focusing too much on small fish instead of the masterminds,” said Damiano Valgolio, legal policy spokesperson of the Left parliamentary group. “Highly publicized inspections of shisha bars where some tobacco is confiscated are not ‘follow the money’.” The same applies to the seizure of illegal firearms. “Profits always go to the masterminds.”

“Follow the money”: Giovanni Falcone’s fight against the mafia as a model

ASSASSINATION GIOVANNI FALCONE
On May 23, 1992, a bomb exploded under Giovanni Falcone’s car. Along with the judge, his wife and three police officers were killed.© picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS | Anonymous

“Follow the money” was something like the working maxim of the Italian judge Giovanni Falcone, who in Palermo (Sicily) brought numerous mafia bosses to court in the 1980s. In 1992 he was murdered in a bomb attack. To this day, Falcone is considered by many a symbol of the determined fight against organized crime.

SPD politician Lehmann also urged a focus on the masterminds of organized crime. “Street dealers need initiatives beyond crime control, for example in residence law, labor law, and integration support.” His AfD counterpart Marc Vallendar, on the other hand, loudly repeated a number of well-known demands of his party without addressing the reversal of the burden of proof in substance.

This article was originally written and published on the 12th of March in German. It was translated in English with the use of Artificial Intelligence.