Whistleblower who aided investigation into Deutsche Bank and Donald Trump found dead in Los Angeles

A Deutsche Bank whistleblower was found dead in California.

The body of 45-year-old Valentin Broeksmit was found by a cleaning crew Monday morning on the campus of Woodrow Wilson High School in Los Angeles, reported KCBS-TV.

"It is very sad," said investigative journalist Scott Stedman, of Forensic News. "I don't suspect foul play. Val struggled with drugs on and off. Waiting on further info."

Broeksmit, a film producer and self-described "comically terrible spy," was last seen in April 2021, but his Twitter account remained active and friends and journalists said they had remained in contact with him until his death.

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"This is terrible news," said New York Times reporter David Enrich. "Val was a longtime source of mine and the main character in my book. We had a complicated relationship, but this is just devastating to hear."

Broeksmit helped the FBI investigate Deutsche Bank, where his stepfather had worked, and offered hundreds of documents to federal investigators and journalists looking for ties between the financial institution and former president Donald Trump. The New York Times described him in a 2019 profile as an "unemployed rock musician with a history of opioid abuse and credit card theft" and a "dalliance with North Korea-linked hackers."

Stedman said Broeksmit, whose father's 2014 suicide haunted him, had given him documents that showed Deutsche Bank's "deep Russia connections."

Profiled in 2019, the Times wrote: "Here’s the thing about whistle-blowers: They tend to be flawed messengers. Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden — each of them was dismissed as selfish, damaged, reckless and crazy. Yet all of them, regardless of motivation, used secret documents to change the course of history."

"For more than five years, Val Broeksmit has been dangling his Deutsche Bank files in front of journalists and government investigators, dreaming of becoming the next great American whistle-blower," the report added. "He wants to expose what he sees as corporate wrongdoing, give some meaning to his father’s death — and maybe get famous along the way."