By Jenny Strasburg 

Scrutiny of Deutsche Bank AG on Capitol Hill looks to be intensifying as Germany's largest lender deals with multiple investigations into its anti-financial crime efforts.

Two Democratic senators asked Republican colleagues who control the Senate Banking Committee to launch a "thorough, detailed bipartisan committee investigation" into the bank.

The request Thursday from Senators Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass) and Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) cites probes into the German lender's activities in Russia and its role in recently surfaced money-laundering investigations tied to a Denmark banking scandal and offshore tax havens.

Deutsche Bank hasn't been accused of wrongdoing in the new probes and said it is cooperating with authorities.

"Deutsche Bank takes its legal obligations seriously and remains committed to cooperating with authorized investigations," a Deutsche Bank spokesman said.

Around 170 German federal officers raided Deutsche Bank offices in Frankfurt in late November as part of an offshore tax-evasion and money-laundering case. The probes have drawn fresh attention to the German bank's controls around financial crime. The bank has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in regulatory fines in recent years in connection with alleged failures to prevent money laundering and sanctions violations.

"The compliance history of this institution raises serious questions about the national security and criminal risks posed by its U.S. operations," the Democratic Senators said in a letter Thursday to Sen. Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

Republicans control the Senate Banking Committee, requiring their support for a full committee investigation. A spokeswoman for the Republican majority members didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The House, soon to be controlled by Democrats, could be a bigger focus of concern for Deutsche Bank.

In 2017, House Democrats led by Rep. Maxine Waters of California repeatedly called for Deutsche Bank to disclose details of any ties to Russia, President Trump and related client accounts. U.S. investigators since 2017 have been looking for possible ties between Russian financial institutions, Mr. Trump and anyone affiliated with him. Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion between his campaign and Russia.

Deutsche Bank rebuffed the House requests, which lacked Republican support. Deutsche Bank executives expect Democrats to come back with new requests next year, since Democrats last month won control of the House.

Sens. Warren and Van Hollen on Thursday asked for a public hearing along with a probe, with a focus on Deutsche Bank's role as a correspondent bank handling international money transfers for other banks. Correspondent banking for years has been widely vulnerable to tainted money flows identified by government officials for aiding sanctions violations and terror financing.

The Democratic senators said they want to know more about Deutsche Bank's role funneling foreign money into the U.S. banking system.

Write to Jenny Strasburg at jenny.strasburg@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 13, 2018 12:39 ET (17:39 GMT)