Deutsche Bank source found dead in Los Angeles

A man believed to have assisted federal investigators and journalists looking into Deutsche Bank was found dead in Los Angeles, local officials said.

A cleaning crew found the body of Val Broeksmit, the adopted son of the late Deutsche Bank executive William Broeksmit, on Monday morning, according to CBS News. The 45-year-old was declared dead around 7 a.m. on the Woodrow Wilson High School campus, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner. An autopsy is underway to determine the cause of death.

The high school’s police said they have no video showing Broeksmit arriving on campus and are unsure how long he was there. Broeksmit’s death is being investigated as an “undetermined death,” a police spokesperson told the Daily Mail on Wednesday.

Broeksmit, whose father died by suicide in 2014, was the subject of a profile titled “Me and My Whistle-Blower” by David Enrich, the business investigations editor at the New York Times, published in 2019. Enrich tweeted in April 2021 that a missing person report was filed with the Los Angeles Police Department and asked the public for assistance in finding Broeksmit.

Police said he was last seen on the afternoon of April 6, 2021, driving a red Mini Cooper on Riverside Drive in Griffith Park, according to the City News Service.

“This is terrible news. Val was a longtime source of mine and the main character in my book. We had a complicated relationship, but this is just devastating to hear,” Enrich said in a tweet about the death.

The profile said Broeksmit assisted the FBI in investigating Deutsche Bank by providing the bureau with a trove of documents. He also spoke to and was subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee as it investigated former President Donald Trump’s ties to the financial giant. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

“I am more emotionally invested in this than anyone in the world,” Broeksmit was quoted as saying. “I would love to be their special informer.”

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Enrich described Broeksmit as “dreaming of becoming the next great American whistle-blower,” adding that he had dangled his Deutsche Bank files before the government and news outlets for more than five years.

“Inside newsrooms and investigative bodies around the world, Mr. Broeksmit’s documents have become something of an open secret, and so are the psychological strings that come attached,” Enrich wrote. “I pulled them more than anyone, as part of my reporting on Deutsche Bank for the New York Times and for a book, Dark Towers, to be published next year. It has been the most intense source relationship of my career.”

The journalist also described Broeksmit’s manic behavior, struggles with drug use, and tendencies to stretch the truth into “far-fetched theories.” He was warned not to trust Broeksmit.

Broeksmit, who was born in Ukraine, found the highly coveted documents two years ago among his late father’s possessions.

After sharing some of the documents with journalists and federal investigators, Broeksmit reportedly met California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, through the musician Moby, whom he met at a party. At the time, Schiff was leading an investigation into Trump’s ties to Deutsche Bank.

Broeksmit reportedly demanded that the committee pay him for the documents, but Schiff refused and instead ordered a subpoena for their possession. The FBI gave Broeksmit a “special advisory title” for his French girlfriend to obtain a U.S. visa in exchange for the documents.

Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank was the subject of congressional interest as investigators sought information related to his tax returns and whether he was compromised by the scandals surrounding the German financial giant.

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Trump and his business, the Trump Organization, are being investigated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump denies any wrongdoing and, in February 2021, decried what he dubbed a “new phenomenon of ‘headhunting’ prosecutors and AGs.”

In 2017, Deutsche Bank was fined more than $600 million for its role in a Russian money-laundering scheme and fined $16 million in August 2019 to settle charges over hiring family members of foreign officials to seek their favor. The Justice Department announced in January 2021 that Deutsche Bank “agreed to pay more than $130 million to resolve the government’s investigation into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and a separate investigation into a commodities fraud scheme.”

Germany’s financial regulator ordered Deutsche Bank in the spring of 2021 to crack down on money laundering, after which the bank said it was “working intensively to also comply with the new requirements within the given timeframe,” according to Reuters.