Spanish Police raided the Spanish headquarters of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC) on Wednesday. The raid led to the arrest of five directors of the bank over charges of money laundering.      

Europe's law-enforcement coordinating body (Europol) said ICBC, which is world's largest bank by assets, is suspected of laundering at least €40 million ($44.6 million) on behalf of a Chinese criminal syndicate.        

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ICBC is also accused of providing services to other Chinese and Spanish criminal syndicates "to introduce into the financial system funds earned through the crimes of smuggling, tax and excise fraud and labor exploitation, allowing the transfer of the funds to China in a way that appeared legal", Europol said.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that this laundering case has links to France, Germany and Lithuania. Europol officials, however, refused to reveal any further details about these international links.

Reacting to Wednesday's raid, an ICBC spokesman in Beijing said ICBC's Madrid branch is offering full cooperation to the investigation agencies.

"Strictly implementing anti-money laundering regulations, and strictly operating within the law and regulations have always been our fundamental operation and management principles," the ICBC spokesman added. 

The Chinese government also took note of Wednesday's raid on ICBC Bank.  Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the Chinese government hopes Spain handles the current situation "justly and according to law, effectively guaranteeing the legal rights and interests of Chinese organizations and personnel".                     

The raid on ICBC is part of the ongoing 'Operation Shadow', which was started last year to probe into Chinese organized crime groups based in Spain.

This raid is also the latest in slew of serious money laundering allegations leveled on other Chinese Banks. In June 2015, a branch of the Bank of China in Milan was accused of money laundering and smuggling, among other crimes. Exactly a month later, the U.S. Federal Reserve reprimanded China Construction Bank Corp to address deficiencies in money laundering compliance or face consequences.               

TagsICBC Bank, Spain, china