ICBC laundering probe: Chinese embassy expresses concern as five Madrid bank directors are arrested

China’s embassy in Spain has issued a statement expressing concern over the raid of the Madrid offices of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) by Spanish police, who arrested five of the bank’s directors as part of a probe into suspected money-laundering.

The bank is suspected of allowing funds earned through the alleged crimes of smuggling, tax fraud and labour exploitation to be transferred “to China in a way that appeared legal”, police said in a statement.

The EU police agency Europol, which supported Spanish authorities in their investigation, announced the five arrests in a separate statement.

Armed police guarded the entrance of the branch located on the leafy Paseo de Recoletos, a wide boulevard in the centre of Madrid, on Wednesday. Suspects were led away in black hoods.

The embassy’s statement on Wednesday said the Chinese government “always demands that the offices of accredited Chinese companies working abroad strictly abide by the laws, both of China and the country they were working in.”

The embassy said that according to the information it currently possesses, “these offices in Spain have acted according to these demands,” and added that it had not received any information about the operation “from any official department in Spain”.