Former Wirecard boss charged with fraud over financial collapse
The former boss of Wirecard has been charged with fraud, breach of trust and accounting manipulation following the collapse of the firm amid a major accounting scandal in June 2020.
Markus Braun has been charged by Munich public prosecutors after a 21 month criminal investigation into practices at the firm which saw it crash into administration in June 2020, The Financial Times first reported.
Braun has been in custody since July 2020 and denies any wrongdoing, claiming he is also a victim of the fraud.
Two other senior wirecard managers have been charged, prosecutors said on Monday – the firm’s finance director and head of accounting Stephan von Erffa, and a former Dubai-based manager of a Wirecard subsidiary firm.
Prosecutors allege that bosses were aware the firm was loss making from 2015, and that its annual results for 2015 to 2018 were “deceitful” and reported cash held in accounts in Asia that did not exist and revenues from outsourced operations.
Wirecard soared in value to €24bn at its peak in 2018 and was hailed as one of the country’s great fintech success stories before its finances began to unravel.
The firm’s former chief operation officer and second in command Jan Marsalek has been on the run since June 2020 and is likely to be hiding in Russia, according to sources cited by the FT. He was last seen in the capital of Belarus, Minsk.
A spokesperson for Braun said on Monday that he too was a victim of the fraud and only found out about the “shadow structures” at Wirecard via the investigations.
“Markus Braun was not a member of the gang that embezzled millions,” the spokesperson said.