The police registered significantly more corruption offenses in 2021 than a year earlier. The number rose by almost 35 percent to 7433 offenses, as announced by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Wiesbaden.

At the same time, there were also more accompanying crimes such as fraud, forgery of documents and violations of official secrecy. Their number increased by more than ten percent, as can be seen from the federal situation report "Corruption 2021".

"Investigation procedures in this area of ​​crime are often very complex," explained the BKA. They could lead to the disclosure of a large number of individual crimes. The number of suspects in corruption offenses rose in 2021 both on the recipient side (11.1 percent) and on the donor side (14.9 percent). The term "giver" stands for the briber, and the term "receiver" refers to the bribed. The total number of suspects in 2021 was 2,457 men and women, around 13 percent higher than in the previous year.

As can also be seen from the statistics, in 2021 the sum of the registered damage from cases of corruption fell by almost a quarter to 61 million euros year-on-year (2020: 81 million euros). Individual large-scale proceedings could cause significant statistical fluctuations. The BKA investigators pointed out that corruption does not only result in economic damage. "It damages the basic trust of the citizens in the independence, incorruptibility and ability of the state to act and the integrity of the economy."