The criminal investigation into possible money laundering violations by Rabobank seemed as good as completed last year, but appears to have been reopened and significantly expanded. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) is now investigating years of negligent money laundering checks on 29 customers of the bank. According to the judiciary, Rabobank still does not have its controls in order.
This is evident from a pronunciation of the Amsterdam District Court that was published on Monday, and about which Het Financieele Dagblad first reported. The court ruling shows that relations between the judiciary and the bank were seriously disrupted at the end of last year. The Public Prosecution Service made this decision in April last year known to summon Rabobank because the bank has been in deficit for years [schoot] in conducting customer research and reporting unusual transactions”.
The banks ABN Amro and ING previously reached settlements of hundreds of millions of euros due to violations of anti-money laundering legislation. Because Rabobank did not want to settle the matter, the case would go to trial, the justice department wrote in a press release in April 2025. According to the Public Prosecution Service, Rabobank was guilty of violations of the Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (Prevention) Act (Wwft) in the period from October 2016 to the end of 2021. The criminal investigation into this was “in the final stages”.
But last November, the justice department still requested a significant amount of new information from Rabobank, according to the judgment published on Monday. Not only did the Public Prosecution Service want to receive the complete file of 29 named customers, the investigating officers also wanted to seize “all general records” at the bank from October 2016 to February 13, 2023, including management information, minutes, reports and meeting documents.
Raid at head office
Rabobank “delayed” in providing that information, the court wrote. After discussions between the Public Prosecution Service, the tax investigation service FIOD and the bank’s lawyers had failed for a month, the justice department decided to claim the documents from Rabobank on December 9. At 8:30 in the morning, several detectives and prosecutors reported unannounced at the counter of Rabobank’s head office in Utrecht. “They were not recognizable to the outside world as investigating officers,” the verdict said.
After the security guards had called someone from the Rabo management who promised to cooperate, “from the room right next to [Rabobank] located FIOD office gradually transferred investigating officers,” the judgment states. In three days, the investigating officers collected all the documents they were looking for.
According to Rabobank, the raid was unlawful. According to the bank, the justice department has no indication that Rabobank has continued to violate money laundering rules after 2021. The bank spoke of an “unnecessary extension of the investigation” and demanded the return of all seized materials from the judge. “The Public Prosecution Service (Public Prosecution Service) has (far) exceeded the bounds of propriety in December 2025,” Rabobank argued before the judges. “Enough is enough, the measure is full and there are limits.”
The judges do not agree with this in their ruling: partly because Rabobank was slow to provide the requested information, the request for extradition and the seizure by the judiciary in December were not unlawful. In addition, the criminal investigation – which seemed almost completed a year ago – is still ongoing. “This means that the interest of criminal proceedings – which includes revealing the truth – precludes restitution,” the court writes.
