The Frankfurt offices of BNP Paribas have been raided by German police as part of investigations into the so-called "Cum-Ex" scandal, a tax evasion scheme worth billions of euros, reports the daily Handelsblatt on Wednesday.

Around 130 public prosecutors, tax investigators and police officers are involved in the raids, which began on Tuesday and also include private residences in three German Länder, the financial daily adds.

A spokeswoman for the French banking group contacted by Reuters had no immediate comment. The German public prosecutor's office could not be reached.

According to Handelsblatt, the investigation is focusing on 58 suspects who were or still are professionally active within the bank.

The so-called "cum-ex" mechanism, which flourished after the 2008 financial crisis, involves high-frequency share swaps during dividend payment periods, to enable multiple parties to subsequently claim refunds from the tax authorities.

The scandal, largely revealed by an international investigation in 2018, has cost taxpayers in several European countries billions of euros, according to parliamentarians.

A large number of banks have been raided as part of the German public prosecutor's investigations, including the German subsidiaries of Barclays, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley in recent months.

According to German government officials, the investigation involves some 100 banks on four continents and around 1,000 suspects.

Following this news, BNP shares fell by a further 1.5% at the end of the morning on the Paris Bourse, while the CAC 40 was down 0.5%. (Marta Orosz reports, written by Miranda Murray, with contributions from Sudip Kar-Gupta, Jean-Stéphane Brosse edits by Kate Entringer)