Status: 09/21/2022 4:31 p.m
More than two years after the payment processor Wirecard went bankrupt, its ex-CEO Markus Braun will soon be in court. The main accusation is commercial gang fraud.
In the largest case of fraud in German post-war history, the criminal trial against former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun is to begin shortly. This was announced by the Munich Higher Regional Court (OLG) today. The Munich I Regional Court has allowed the Munich public prosecutor’s office to charge Braun and two other former Wirecard managers unchanged.
The Higher Regional Court did not give any details. It was initially unclear on which day the trial should begin, how many witnesses should be summoned and how many trial days should be scheduled. The main accusation against the businessmen is commercial gang fraud. The possible maximum penalty for particularly serious cases of fraud is ten years imprisonment. Braun has been in custody since July 22, 2020.
Accounting fraud, market manipulation, breach of trust
However, a conviction presupposes that the accused acted with full intention – there is no criminal offense of negligent fraud. In the 474-page indictment, the public prosecutor’s office accuses Braun, his former head of accounts Stephan von Erffa and the former governor of Wirecard in Dubai, Oliver Bellenhaus, of accounting fraud, market manipulation, breach of trust in several cases and commercial gang fraud.
According to this, Braun and his accomplices are said to have falsified Wirecard’s balance sheets since 2015 and damaged lending banks by a total of 3.1 billion euros – of which 1.7 billion euros in loans and a further 1.4 billion in bonds. The economic criminal proceedings – one of the largest in German history – are being conducted before the fourth criminal division.
The forthcoming process is likely to be complex and lengthy. According to their own statements, the public prosecutor’s office had identified and checked 340 companies, 450 people and over 1100 bank accounts as relevant for their indictment. According to research by BR Wirecard’s payment flows show that the suspicion of money laundering has been substantiated.
Biggest financial scam in Germany
The former DAX group collapsed in June 2020 after the audit of the annual financial statements revealed sham bookings of almost two billion euros. The money is still missing today. The Austrian ex-CEO Braun had protested his innocence in the past and rejected the allegations. He sees himself as a victim of criminal activities.
The former billionaire was ruined by the collapse of his company because he had invested almost his entire fortune in Wirecard shares. Not only banks and investors were harmed, but also tens of thousands of shareholders. After its rise to the DAX on the stock exchange in 2018, Wirecard was at times worth more than 20 billion euros – this capital has evaporated.
The alleged fraud damage of more than three billion euros in absolute figures and not adjusted for inflation exceeds all cases that have become known in Germany since 1945. The previous “record holder” was the Baden company Flowtex, which caused fraud damage of two billion euros with the sale of non-existent drilling machines in the 1990s. In the VW scandal, the follow-up costs for the Wolfsburg group were much higher at around 30 billion euros. But it wasn’t about financial fraud.