The first criminal case is imminent in the Wirecard scandal. On Wednesday, the Munich I Regional Court approved the charges against the former CEO Markus Braun, the former Wirecard manager Oliver Bellenhaus and the former head of group accounting Stephan E. After several years of investigations, the processing of what is probably the biggest case of fraud in German economic history continues before the 4th criminal division of the regional court. Those involved expect the main hearing to begin in early 2023.
The Munich I public prosecutor’s office accuses Braun and some of the other two ex-managers of commercial gang fraud, breach of trust in several cases, balance sheet falsification and market manipulation. The 474-page indictment has been in court since mid-March. Accordingly, Braun and other participants are said to have manipulated the group balance sheets from 2015 and damaged lending banks by a total of 3.1 billion euros. In addition, they had “supposedly invented extremely profitable business, especially in Asia,” according to the investigators.
The indictment has now been admitted “unchanged” to the main hearing, said the judicial press office of the Munich Higher Regional Court. The word is crucial: Despite massive resistance, especially the defense of ex-CEO Braun, the court will negotiate all the charges.
For Braun, the admission of the indictment is a defeat
For Braun, who has been in custody for more than two years, this is a defeat. He denies every single one of the allegations made against him. He knew nothing about the alleged machinations of the fugitive ex-board member and main suspect Jan Marsalek. Parallel to the investigation and after the indictment, Braun’s defense attorneys had done their own research on cash flows relating to Wirecard’s partner companies in Asia, whose alleged business was at the center of the alleged fraud.
In extensive briefs, Braun’s lawyers accused the investigators of serious deficits and demanded that their client be released. The dubious accounts and cash flows, the backgrounds of which have not yet been determined, suggested that Marsalek and other suspects had embezzled significant sums from the Wirecard business. The whereabouts of the funds had not been clarified. Thus, according to the public prosecutor, the transactions that were invented actually existed and any manipulations would rather have served to conceal the misappropriation of Wirecard revenue. The public prosecutor’s office disagreed. The judges have now apparently followed the investigators’ opinion.
A lengthy process lies ahead
In court, Braun’s lawyers should defend themselves accordingly against the allegations. A long, difficult process is looming that could take several years. Braun’s defense attorney Alfred Dierlamm was initially unavailable for comment. Braun’s previous communications advisor, Hesse’s former government spokesman Dirk Metz, recently resigned his mandate.
In addition to Markus Braun, Oliver Bellenhaus is still in custody. The former Wirecard state official in Dubai had testified extensively in several interrogations and heavily incriminated Braun. The public prosecutor considers his statements to be credible and bases parts of the indictment on them. Stephan E. is the only one of the three accused at large.
The payment service provider and former Dax group Wirecard collapsed spectacularly in mid-2020. That was years of research, especially by the British Financial Times preceded that the company, among other things, invented customers and businesses, falsified balance sheets and processed electronic payments for illegal transactions. Two years ago in June, Wirecard went bankrupt within a week after the auditors had refused to certify the group. Former board member Jan Marsalek has been on the run ever since and is still believed to be in Russia.