The Wirecard process begins this Thursday in Munich in an underground meeting room next to the Stadelheim prison / It is about one of the biggest fraud cases in German post-war history. The currently imprisoned CEO Markus Braun and two former top managers of the bankrupt financial services provider are on trial.
From 2015 to 2019 they are said to have falsified the balance sheets and taken out loans of 3.1 billion euros without ever being able to repay any of it. Around 5,000 people lost their jobs as a result of the Wirecard bankruptcy.
At times, the provider of credit card statements was worth more than 20 billion euros on the Frankfurt stock exchange – more than Deutsche Bank or Lufthansa. But this sum was just smoke and mirrors…
The Wirecard scandal was also investigated by a committee in the Bundestag, to which the then Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had to answer questions.
Is Hidden Marsalek Hidden by Russia?
One suspect is missing from the Munich trial: Jan Marsalek. The Austrian went into hiding in the summer of 2020 and has been suspected of being in Russia since 2021. According to a report by BILD, Marsalek is said to be in a hiding place of the Russian secret service FSB. According to media reports, Moscow has offered the German judicial authorities to question the accused.
The Bavarian police have launched a worldwide manhunt for Jan Marsalek.
The Austrian and ex-Wirecard boss Markus rejects the allegations of fraud. Oliver Bellenhaus – the former head of the Wirecard subsidiary in Dubai testifies as a key witness for the public prosecutor.
The trial in Munich is scheduled to last until 2024. The 89-page indictment was to be read out on the first day of the trial – in about five hours.
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