Start of the Wirecard process: six hours of accusation after accusation

What role did ex-Wirecard boss Braun play in the bankruptcy of the DAX group? This question is being discussed at the Munich I Regional Court as of today. The allegations against him and two other defendants weigh heavily.

Fast, modern, ahead of the times – former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun has cultivated this image of his group for years. At the Munich district court, nothing is progressing at first. The trial was supposed to start at 9 a.m. today. When judge Markus Födisch finally speaks, it is 9.47 a.m. He apologizes for the delay, he wanted to “allow the public,” says Födisch.

Early in the morning, shortly after five o’clock, the first spectators had been waiting in the bitter cold in front of the courtroom in the immediate vicinity of the Stadelheim prison to secure one of the coveted seats. In the following hours, the number of people waiting grew, so that the admission control took longer.

“Mark’s first name?” – “That’s right”

Then the time has come: Markus Braun enters the wood-panelled courtroom through a side door, directly behind him is Oliver Bellenhaus, the former managing director of a Wirecard subsidiary based in Dubai. Both are still in custody. The third accused, Wirecard’s former chief accountant, is at large.

Braun is wearing a dark blue suit that day, along with the obligatory dark turtleneck sweater. That’s what Braun did for years when he was Wirecard’s CEO. The reference to Steve Jobs, the late Apple founder, was obvious even then. With a lanky gait, Braun walks straight towards the long, white row of seats where his four-man defense team has already taken their places.

Braun sits on the chair next to lawyer Alfred Dierlamm, who advised him before the Wirecard insolvency on June 25, 2020. During the course of the first day of the trial, he repeatedly bends over to his defense attorney. The native of Vienna only spoke once when judge Markus Födisch checked the personal details of the accused. “Your first name is Markus?” “That’s right,” Braun says loudly and firmly, pulling the mic close to his mouth. Nothing more is heard from him for the rest of the day.

90 pages of indictment

A laptop is in front of the 53-year-old. As the prosecutor reads the indictment, Braun stares at the screen. In the approximately six hours, he endures more or less motionless that the investigators accuse him and the two co-defendants accusation after accusation. The indictment is around 90 pages long.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, the three defendants Braun, Bellenhaus and the former Wirecard chief accountant were part of a gang. “Their goal was to inflate the balance sheet total and the sales volume of Wirecard AG at group level by feigning income and profits from transactions with so-called third party acquirers (hereinafter TPA) in order to present the company as more financially strong and more attractive for investors and customers” – so is one of the key sentences in the indictment, which leads to the heart of the Wirecard scandal.

The linchpin is the question of whether Wirecard’s online payment processing business with third-party partners such as Payeasy in the Philippines and Al Alam in Dubai really existed. During interrogations over the past few months, the accused Oliver Bellenhaus has testified that this business was completely fabricated. Bellenhaus, who is considered the prosecutor’s key witness, will soon speak out in person at the trial.

Almost two billion are still missing today

According to reports, Braun also wants to comment on the proceedings. His defense has been emphasizing for weeks that the ex-CEO is a victim of former board member Jan Marsalek, who is believed to have gone into hiding in Russia. Braun and his defense attorneys say they have evidence of the existence of the third-party business. Wirecard collapsed in June 2020 because 1.9 billion euros from this business, which were to be held in escrow accounts for Wirecard in Manila, could not be found. To this day they are not.

According to the public prosecutor and the insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé, this money never existed. Braun’s defense team says a gang around Marsalek and Bellenhaus have moved hundreds of millions abroad – into nested company structures.

100 process days are scheduled

The 4th Criminal Chamber of the Munich I Regional Court has scheduled 100 trial days until the end of December 2023 and has already indicated that the proceedings are likely to last into 2024. The first day of the trial ends relatively unspectacularly in the early evening. It’s been dark outside for a long time now. Those involved in the process and spectators saw daylight only during the short breaks. Hardly any light comes through the windows in the underground courtroom.

The second day of the trial is scheduled for next Monday, starting at 9 a.m. again. Then the process really starts, and the first statements from the defense teams are planned.