FinTech’s Austrian talent, who fell like water, lived a double life: obvious traces of GRU

2018 had just started when Marshalek, Wirecard’s young senior COO, held a meeting at his home in Munich. He spoke about a new project that interests him: a potential of 15 thousand. The recruitment of Libyan fighters.

Now that the Wirecard bubble has burst, Marshal has disappeared: he has been issued an international arrest warrant. In a large financial fraud case, he is considered a top suspect: The company lied about its billing and earnings, falsifying other data.

However, the documents and testimonies show that J. Marshalek was far from worrying about sophisticated accounting. And the most interesting thing is that Russia’s footprints embedded in its activities: the Austrians, according to the Financial Times, are of interest even to the intelligence services of three western countries.

“Very strange character”

Austrian J. Marshalek, 40, lived not two but more lives, in all of them, his commercial and political interests were complicated.

Suppose your shares were once in line with Wirecard’s plans to aggressively expand into key markets. Next time, already J.Marsalek’s personal investments. And sometimes his decisions were reminiscent of the work of Russia’s intelligence services.

Western intelligence is now particularly interested in Marshallek’s ties to individuals or groups linked to Russia’s GRU, an agency accused of destructive actions in Ukraine, which interferes in the 2016 US presidential election and attempts to poison former Russian spy Sergei. Skripal in the United Kingdom.

What has Libya, a country with a strong interest in Austria, that has been active in the conflict zone here been doing? After all, even the most abused Western investors in the past decade are avoiding this war-torn state.

However, in such chaos, it is possible to act in secret and fight for your own interests, both commercial and diplomatic. There is no shortage of spies in Libya, and Marshallek appears to be probably Russia’s agent.

The Financial Times interacted with at least half a dozen people who had developed projects in Libya together with Austria. They communicated anonymously; everyone is afraid to speak openly because they are concerned for their safety.

“Overall, Marsalek is a very strange character. He’s crazy about security and he’s very mysterious. He could never tell if what was happening was real or played,” said one of those former oyster mates.

Another remembers lunch at Marshalek’s favorite restaurant, Käfer-Schänke in Munich. The Austrian then decided to boast of a “fantastic” trip to the Palmyra ruins in Syria, where he was invited by the Russian army immediately after recovering the ancient jihadist city from the “Islamic State”.

However, a western explorer emphasizes that it is hard to see if Marshal understood who he was dealing with – perhaps his stubborn decisions were driven simply by a fanatical desire to seek and find adventure?

Experts summoned

Marshal called the 61st Prinzregentenstrasse in Munich his home. By the way, standing right in front of a solid Russian consulate building.

It was here in February 2018 when the aforementioned meeting took place, whose official objective was to discuss humanitarian aid to Libya and the reconstruction of that country.

Marshal asked a group of Austrian experts in international security and development for help. These were recommended to the businessman by contacts in the Austro-Russian Friendship Community, an organization enthusiastically supported by the Russian government.

The community, which has received much criticism for its warm ties to Moscow, made headlines in the Austrian press in July, revealing that its secretary was receiving secret documents from Marshalek, who had illegally obtained them from Austrian security services.

An employee of the Austro-Russian Community passed these documents on to the Freedom Party on the country’s far right.

Admittedly, some of the experts invited to the meeting, as former diplomats, quickly became uneasy as soon as they found out more about what Marshalek specifically was interested in Libya.

Austras offered them 200 thousand euros for the work. Official documents also show that the proposal and an additional 120,000. received from the Austrian government.

However, during the meeting it became clear that Marshalek did not mind the reconstruction of Libya. An expert told the Financial Times: “I don’t know what the actual plans were, but I think we should have been a cover for their ideas.”

A mysterious colonel

Marshal appears to have been more concerned with taking control of migration flows along Libya’s southern border, using armed militants.

During the 2018 meeting, according to sources in the Financial Times, the Austrians spoke of the desire to “close the border” with 15,000. With the help of fighters, he called the border police. This would be a lever in negotiations with Tripoli, and the project could be “sold” to the EU as a solution to the migration crisis.

J. Marsalek did not care about subtleties. He preferred to speak to experts not about financial aid or civic projects, but about, for example, sending military equipment to Libya.

Finally, he offered the invited Austrians an introduction to “a Russian who wears many hats and can handle security.” What did Marshall mean?

That Russian, often called “Colonel” by J.Marsalek, is Andrei Chuprygin. He is an Arab at the Moscow School of Economics, having previously served for many years in the Russian forces stationed in the Middle East.

Therefore, for those meeting participants who know more about European diplomacy and security, the name of A. Čiupryginas became a bell of danger.

And an intelligence officer from a western country now says there really was cause for concern: Chiuprygin was almost certainly a high-ranking official of Russian military intelligence (GRU), and is still involved in it.

Of course, A. Čiupryginas himself does not recognize this. He says he only worked with Marshalek as a researcher and linguist, and the Financial Times assured him: “I have never been involved with the intelligence services. I also don’t know anything about the Marsalek connections.”

Wagner Group and RSB

Russia is, of course, active and increasingly active in Libya. The Kremlin seeks to gain as much influence as possible in North Africa, with the long-term goal of driving the West and NATO out of the eastern Mediterranean entirely.

Settling in the region, in principle, would guarantee Moscow a place at the negotiating table of the highest level of international diplomacy. Furthermore, Russia’s entry into Libya would provide a powerful weapon against the EU: controlling migration flows.

It’s true, until now acting in secret. Military operations in Libya are organized by the GRU, as well as the widespread use of Wagner group contractors, as such a model has been effective in both Syria and Ukraine, it is also being addressed here.

Wagner is officially a commercial organization, but Western intelligence has no doubt that its services are used by GRU. The Kremlin, of course, denies it.

Reuters recently cited a leaked United Nations document in May, stating that there have been between 800 and 1,200 Wagner members in Libya since October 2018.

“It is a very dirty business and there is not much information,” said Sergei Suchankin, an analyst at the Jamestown Foundation who has been monitoring Russian activity in Libya for several years. – Those people are geopolitical tools. In Libya, they are under pressure. “

According to S. Suchankin, there have always been Russian contractors in Libya, but in 2017 they stayed there for a longer period of time. And he stayed in an industrial complex in eastern Libya, whose co-owner claimed to be Marshalek.

The Libya Cement Company (LCC) plants were then home to several dozen Russian armed soldiers from the RSB Group, a group that employs members of Russia’s special forces.

The head of the company, Oleg Krinicyn, has stated that he not only serves veterans of the Russian “special” forces Alfa and Vympel, but also former smokers of the Federal Security Service.

Although there are online photos of RSB Group contractors posing with weapons, a company spokesperson said there was a “humanitarian mission” in Libya and that it had nothing to do with the Russian special forces.

Where did you get the secret documents?

Again, there is no lack of evidence on social media that soldiers in LCC factories simply cleared mines in the surrounding fields. But RSB Group has already left Libya.

And who is LCC? The company is publicly owned by the Libya Holdings Group, registered in London, which denies any links to Marshalek.

But according to five different sources in the Financial Times, the Austrian is actually one of the new owners of the LCC, which was sold in 2015. In other words, it can be understood that it was J. Marshal who admitted the Russian contractors to the factories from LCC.

“Russian mercenaries from the Middle East and Africa are increasingly involved in complex commercial contracts, such as the RSB and LCC Group agreement.

A good example is Wagner’s activities in the Central African Republic, where the group operates mines under contract. The Kremlin wants not only the opportunity to deny its tracks, but also to market the project. Military influence is important, but geoeconomics is just as important, ”explains S. Suchankin.

In fact, Marshal has always heard that he will have no problem in Libya, because he will be helped by armed men from Russia. It is true that his great ideas did not come true.

LCC is not yet operating at full capacity, Libya is still divided, Russian mercenaries in Africa in the West, especially in the United States, are already looking through a magnifying glass. Finally, Wirecard collapsed, and Marshal himself appears to be hiding in the Philippines.

Many of his former colleagues do not believe in the evil oyster plans. But the Financial Times then asks where Marshal got four top-secret documents from the Chemical Weapons Insurance Organization (OPCW), which he proudly shared with his partners in 2018 in London.

The reports analyzed Russia’s attempt to poison former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal with the nerve-wracking substance Novičiok in Salisbury, England. The files even contained Novičiok’s exact formula.

The documents are generally not leaked from the OPCW, but it appears that a few months ago, the organization became the target of a cyber attack by GRU programmers.

“The simple fact that Marshalek valiantly greeted such sensitive documents attests to the recklessness that is not typical even of Russian agents.

But the fact that the businessman had documents in general shows that he cannot be considered a mere adventurer looking for an adventure, “states the Financial Times.