Currently, the former CEO of the collapsed Wirecard, the Austrian Markus Braun, is on trial in Munich. His former board fellow, the Austrian Jan Marsalek, who has been a fugitive since the 2020 collapse of the German payment company, has reached out to a Munich court through his legal representative. This is according to the court and the public prosecutor’s office. He reportedly meant that there actually was the controversial third-party acquiring business, supporting Braun’s defense.
This recent development occurs during the trial of Wirecard‘s former CEO and is Marsalek’s first known official correspondence. Marsalek, who used to be the chief operating officer at Wirecard, has been untraceable for quite some time. German law enforcement, who have been conducting a global search and have a standing arrest warrant for Marsalek, hold him responsible for a “fraud in the billions.”
The former CFO is on the run and may be resident in Russia, but this has never been confirmed. Spokesmen for both the prosecutor’s office and the court have confirmed this, but have not commented on the content of the letter. Marsalek is said not to have responded to the accusations against him.
In judicial circles, it is said that Marsalek incriminates above all Oliver Bellenhaus in the letter. The latter was for a long time the Dubai state representative for Wirecard but is now the key witness for the public prosecutor’s office, and has admitted to the billion-dollar fraud. Marsalek had indicated in his lawyer’s letter that Bellenhaus was not telling the truth on several points. It is unclear exactly why Marsalek is speaking out now. However, it cannot be ruled out that he will come forward again at a later date.
Wirecard went bankrupt in 2020, leaving creditors nearly $4 billion in the hole, after revealing a 1.9 billion euro ($2.13 billion) deficit in its accounts, which its auditor EY attributed to a high-level international fraud.
