In "Greed and Fear" the Dortmund homicide commission begins its work after a financial adviser was found shot dead on the port site - a victim on the hunt for more and more wealth? Manager Josef Micklitza (Stefan Rudolf) shows up at the Dortmund police headquarters late in the evening, very nervous and soaked from the rain: he found a dead man with a gunshot wound on the port area. It is his financial adviser Claus Lembach, a heavyweight in a highly sensitive industry. The news of the murder startles his customers: So far there has been a hefty return, are millions of dollars in danger now? Or are they adequately secured by thePrivate bank "Roden"? Even his brother Micki (Sascha Geršak) cannot say why Josef Micklitza went into hiding the night of the murder.
The two brothers live in different worlds, but have never broken off contact. Micki owns a nightclub and makes little effort to hide his drug use. Inspector Jan Pawlak is now observing him contacting the customers of the murdered Claus Lembach. Completely unexpected, Pawlak meets his wife Ella (Anke Retzlaff) during the investigation: the mother of their daughter disappeared more than a year ago. Now he hopes that she will come home and they can be a family again.