Police Raid Adler Real Estate Offices

Police conducted a widespread raid on Germany’s Adler Real Estate this week, coordinating activities across more than a dozen properties in multiple countries.

Police raided 20 offices and apartments in its search on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Adler Real Estate, a major residential landlord based in Berlin, is a subsidiary of Adler Group, which said it was cooperating in the investigation into false accounting, market manipulation and breach of trust, according to prosecutors.

The raid unfolded in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Monaco, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, Frankfurt police said. A law firm was also searched in the 175-person raid.

Select Adler Real Estate board members past and present are suspected of falsifying balance sheets or supporting such activities from 2018 to 2020, prosecutors allege. They’re also suspected of making up transactions to improve prices on projects and increase the loan-to-value ratio.

No Adler Group board members are being investigated, its spokesperson said.

Another target of the raid was real estate tycoon Cevdet Caner, Bloomberg reported. The investor had his homes in London and Monaco searched, according to his lawyer, who said Caner was willing to cooperate with the investigation.

A whistleblower dragged Caner into the probe after raising concerns about his potential involvement in the alleged illicit activity. Prosecutors are looking into the 2019 sale of a property to a firm controlled by Caner’s brother-in-law; that transaction was ultimately reversed after a regulator found the price was overvalued by as much as $242 million when converted to US dollars at current currency exchange rates.

Adler has been under investigation for its accounting practices since 2021. That year, short sellers accused the company of artificially inflating its balance sheet. KPMG refused to give Adler Group an audit certificate for the firm’s 2021 annual financial statements.

Adler is looking to sell assets after creditors agreed to restructure the company’s $6.6 billion in debt.

— Holden Walter-Warner