If you would like to learn more about the Wirecard-Scandal make sure to also check out our Podcast with Dr. Max Steiger on Spotify! For many years, Wirecard AG was considered a pioneer of digitalisation, innovation, and Germanys future as a financial centre. There were even musings about a takeover of Deutsche Bank. Yet there were always anomalies and short-sellers like Fraser Perring, who seemingly discovered criminal machinations at Wirecard earlier than anyone else. Then, in the middle of 2020, the house of cards of shadow accounts, shell companies and balance sheet fraud finally collapsed. Wirecard at its best valued at 16 billion euros on the stock market is now insolvent. 1.9 billion euros have disappeared without a trace, and the former CFO, Jan Marsalek, has been on the run ever since. And Markus Braun? He is enjoying his time in a 9-square-metre cell in Augsburg Prison. The Munich Higher Regional Court does not grant an application for his release. After more than 15 months of investigation, the public prosecutors office is still relying on the key witness B.s allegations, but no charges have been brought yet. Key witness B. was Wirecards Asia manager for many years. It is precisely this key witness who claims that Braun, as a close confidant of Jan Marsalek, knew about the entire fraud network. In the investigation, many people were questioned, but no one has confirmed the statements of key witness B to date. On the other hand, there are increasing indications that Markus Brauns story cannot be accurate. Is Braun wrongfully imprisoned? The following arguments raise justified doubts about Brauns guilt: Firstly, Marsalek, the key witness B. and James Henry OSullivan, who has already been arrested in Singapore, are said to have built up a shadow structure of letterbox companies and front companies a kind of Wirecard 2.0 over the years. The balance sheet manipulations thus did not serve to make Wirecard look good on the capital market but exclusively to conceal the many embezzlements of Wirecard funds by the Marsalek squad. Between 2015 2018, Marsalek has spent more than 60 times in Russia alone, where he met dubious business partners and secret service agents. In Munich, Marsaleks place of residence in Germany is the investment firm IMS Capital Partners, arguably the core of the shadow empire. This company is associated with a former Libyan intelligence agent who is said to have acted as an investor for Marsalek. Markus Braun never visited this residence, nor did he know of its existence. Crown witness B., on the other hand, is said to have been at this location several times. Secondly: Wirecard AG is said to have generated no more revenues in its Asian business after 2016. But is this true? The latest findings speak against it. B. had set up a foundation in Liechtenstein in 2016, which received 6 million euros. But where did this money come from? It is most likely that this foundation capital came from Al Alam Solutions, a company based in the British Virgin Islands. Proceeds from the third-party business in Asia have been diverted from this company and flowed into B.s foundation. State witness B. also supervised the third-party business in Asia and later became managing director of the in-house bank and subsidiary in Dubai Cardsystems Middle East. This company acted as an intermediary between Wirecard AG and the third-party partners. In 2015, Wirecard is said to have still generated Asian revenues of 375 million euros. B. claims that after that (2016) the revenues fell to zero and that Braun wanted to fudge this in the books. The following question must be allowed: How can this be if six million euros from the third-party business in Asia were transferred to B.s foundation in 2016? The most obvious answer is: There were still Asian sales, only they were embezzled. Thirdly: Many investigative journalists who had insight into emails and bank statements confirm that there had always been revenues in Asia, but these were diverted and flowed into shadow structures and accounts on Caribbean islands. All in all, the amounts involved are in the three-digit millions, and the trail almost always leads to B. In the Asian business, three companies accounted for nearly 100% of the turnover: Al Alam, Pay Easy, and Senjo. Thomas Borgwerth, a balance sheet analyst who expressed doubts about Wirecards business model at an early stage, said: Al Alam and Co. were nothing more than letterbox companies. There was sometimes only one office where someone opened the door. Again as a reminder: Crown witness B. was responsible for precisely this Asian business, Marsalek was responsible for it at the board level. But another company first completed the construct: PXP Financial Limited. The Senjo Group bought this company and was at the centre of a kind of Wirecard 2.0. Over 1000 merchants subsequently had their credit card processing done via PXP. With a considerable transformation of customers, the processing volume jumped from 3 billion to 20 billion. And another matter is highly dubious: If Senjo, one of Wirecards top three third-party partners in Asian business, did not generate any sales since 2016, as it had always claimed: Where did the millions from PXP come from? Here, too, the assumption is that many revenues continued to be generated and were subsequently transferred to the dubious account structures. Markus Braun probably did not even know about the transfer of the 1000 customers. Fourthly: In a chat transcript between Marsalek and another Wirecard manager, the latter made the following statement, shortly after the collapse of Wirecard AG: You have stolen billions over the last few years with James and Co. He is not talking about Markus Braun but the Marsalek team. He is also referring to transactions such as those with Centurion Online Payments and the client Client Communication Service. This company resided in Antigua, a small Caribbean island. If one follows the account movements, one finds that shortly before the collapse of Wirecard, deposits were made to this account in tranches weekly, always around €300,000. And key witness B.? Well, here, too, everything points to his guilt. He possessed both the pin corresponding to the account, which was discovered in B.s personal safe in the office in Aschheim and the role as the responsible salesperson for the account. In addition, an email correspondence from 2018 between Wirecards treasury and the key witness B. confirms that the latter complained in a highly abusive manner about a highly dubious double transfer by Centurion. He wrote the following: This is an unbelievable huge shit. Exactly this transfer should not have gone out twice of all transfers. Any but that one. Real shit. And it continued with, Call the fuckers sometime. We need that money back. Are such an insulting and abusive response to a double referral appropriate? Thats for everyone to decide, but what is also dubious is that B. is supposed to have lost his smartphone. When investigators asked for it, he claimed that he had lost it. In all these protocols and highly dubious transfers, there is never any mention of Braun not once. But always about the Marsalek troupe. Fifthly: State witness B. is said to have invested the assets of his foundation in various shares. However, he did not buy a single Wirecard share, although he was a high-ranking manager in the apparently so wonderfully functioning Wirecard. Did someone here know about a probable collapse? However, even more interesting is Brauns behaviour at this point: He held on to his shares until the last second and bought several more blocks of shares in May 2020, just a few weeks before the collapse. For this, he even mortgaged his private real estate, in which his own family lived. Why would Braun have done this if, at the same time, he had collaborated in Wirecards downfall? There is no rational reason for this. Except just this: Markus Brauns claims about his ignorance of the business are valid. He knew nothing about it and therefore wanted to regain societys trust in Wirecard until the very end. To do so, he put his entire fortune and even his family at risk. Either way, there are many indications that B.s key witness was the perpetrator. An indictment is still pending, but perhaps light will be shed on the matter after the charge. In any case, this is a fascinating development with an open end. Written by: Maurice Frings Sources: ThePioneer FOCUS, Ausgabe 43, S. 64-67 Der Beitrag Wirecard Scandal: Is Markus Braun ex-CEO wrongly in jail? erschien zuerst auf akboerse.
Im Wirecard-Strafprozess hat der Hauptangeklagte, Ex-CEO Markus Braun, alle Anklagepunkte der Staatsanwaltschaft München von sich gewiesen.
Der BER hat jetzt schon den doppelten Schaden wie der Wirecard Skandal hinterlassen. Wie es dazu kam und ob das Ende der Misere erreicht ist, untersucht dieser Film. Prof. Dr. Hans Georg Gemünden, Initiator der Studie Die unglaubliche Odyssee der Flugh
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