Public Prosecutor Birkwald and her team are slowly becoming aware of the extent of the cum-ex transactions. She is pursuing a plan to conduct simultaneous searches in 16 countries.

The worldwide searches were a complete success for Public Prosecutor Birkwald – much to the displeasure of Hausner and Lebert. Lebert also learned that he had been let down by her.

With Lebert's help, investigative journalists Liholt from Copenhagen and Fromm from Hamburg deceive the Cum-Ex fraudster Akram and get a picture of the shocking extent of the scandal.

Lena Birkwald succeeds in making the extent of tax fraud clear to the Finance Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia. But Birkwald also wants to get to grips with the institutions themselves: the banks.