Fraud process
First charge in the Wirecard complex
The former company headquarters of Wirecard in Aschheim near Munich. Photo: Peter Kneffel/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The first charge in the Wirecard scandal does not affect any manager of the ex-financial service provider. Sales manager Jan Marsalek may have been cheated out of embezzled millions himself.
A year and a half after the collapse of the Wirecard Group, the Munich public prosecutor brought the first indictment in what is believed to be the largest fraud scandal of the post-war period.
The accused is not a Wirecard manager, but a minor figure: A former business partner of the hiding ex-sales director Jan Marsalek is said to have embezzled together with him 22 million euros from the group’s coffers, as the Munich public prosecutor announced. Subsequently, the defendant is said to have diverted eight million euros from this embezzled money for himself. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported first.
The public prosecutor’s office accuses the man of 26 particularly serious cases of money laundering combined with fraud in particularly serious cases and incorrect bookkeeping. According to investigations, Marsalek, the defendant and other accomplices wanted to invest the 22 million embezzled Wirecard million via an investment company in German start-ups and thus conceal the criminal origin of the funds – hence the money laundering allegation.
Contrary to what had been agreed with Marsalek and Co., the defendant is said to have spent eight million euros on the purchase and renovation of a house in Munich and his own offices in Switzerland. Now the Munich district court must first decide whether to admit the indictment.
Marsalek has been in hiding since the summer of 2020 and is believed to be in Russia. Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun, who has been in custody since then, has not yet been charged. The Munich Higher Regional Court, which is responsible for the detention checks, recently made it clear that it was expecting Braun to be prosecuted by March.
The investigators accuse Braun and other former Wirecard top managers of gang fraud. They are said to have invented non-existent sales in the billions in order to systematically steal loans and investor money. The fraud damage could therefore have reached a record amount of three billion euros.