German prosecutors said Monday they have charged Wirecard’s former chief executive Markus Braun and two other high-ranking managers for the colossal commercial fraud that led to the collapse of the payment company. The trio are accused of market manipulation, embezzlement and gang fraud on a commercial scale, said prosecutors in Munich, noting that the indictment itself runs to 474 pages.
The German fintech company, once touted as a shining star of innovative start-ups, crashed in June 2020 after admitting that a missing 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) from its balance sheets likely didn’t exist. The time it took for prosecutors to file formal charges underlined the intricate and complex web of fraudulent transactions implicating Wirecard subsidiaries and third-party companies that took investigators across the world to unravel.
Among victims of the fraud were banks that had provided credit of 1.7 billion euros to Wirecard. Bonds worth 1.4 billion euros had also been issued and are unlikely to be repaid. “All the accused group members were acting in an industrial fashion in these six cases of fraud, because that is how they secured their own salaries, including partially profit-related portions.” —APP
