Reuters
- Former Wirecard chief executive Markus Braun was arrested again in Munich as German prosecutors dug deeper into allegations of fraud at the fintech firm.
- Two other executives, revealed by the Financial Times as former Wirecard chief financial officer Burkhard Ley, and Stephan von Erffa, a former chief accounting officer, were also arrested.
- Former operations director Jan Marsalek probably escaped to Russia with “clear help from Russian intelligence,” two officials told Business Insider.
- Wirecard filed for insolvency a month ago, shortly after revealing that an amount of 1.9 billion euros ($ 2 billion) was missing from its balance sheet, and that it probably never existed.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun has been arrested a second time when German prosecutors further investigated a fraud investigation surrounding the company’s inflated balance sheet.
Two other executives, named by the Financial Times as former Wirecard chief financial officer Burkhard Ley, and Stephan von Erffa, a former chief accounting officer, were also arrested.
The German fintech group, which was once a beloved analyst, is suspected of falsifying third-party revenue since 2015. Wirecard filed for insolvency a month ago shortly after revealing that an amount of € 1.9 billion ($ 2 billion) was missing. in your balance. , and probably never existed.
Wirecard has borrowed funds worth 3.2 billion euros ($ 3.7 billion) from banks and investors in Germany and Japan in the past five years. Due to the group’s insolvency, the cash is likely to be lost, prosecutor Anna Leiding said, according to the FT.
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The arrests of Braun and his former colleagues reportedly follow prosecutors who mentioned German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s endorsement of Wirecard to Chinese officials in September 2019, despite her top advisers being aware of investigations into your financial irregularities.
Oliver Bellenhaus, head of Wirecard’s subsidiary in Dubai, CardSystems Middle East, was arrested earlier this month as part of the company’s investigation.
Along with Braun’s second arrest, there remains a mystery about the whereabouts of Jan Marsalek, the company’s chief operating officer.
Two European law enforcement officials told Business Insider this week that Marsalek likely escaped to Russia last month when officials tried to question him about the massive hole in the balance sheet.
He is said to have fled with the “clear help of Russian intelligence.”
Braun was first arrested at the time in connection with market manipulation and false accounting.
This is how Wirecard went from being an analyst to a $ 2.2 billion accounting scandal, and it cost SoftBank hundreds of millions in the process.
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