The Wirecard criminal trial for what is believed to be the largest case of fraud in Germany since 1945 begins in Munich on Thursday. The public prosecutor's office accuses the former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun and his two co-defendants of forming a criminal gang that falsified group balance sheets and lenders around 3.1 billion to have cheated euros.
For the start of the trial, the reading of the 89-page indictment, which lasts several hours, is planned. The fourth criminal chamber of the Munich district court has scheduled around 100 trial days until 2024. The negotiations take place in an underground high-security wing next to the JVA Stadelheim, the largest Bavarian prison.
1.9 billion euros are still missing today
As a payment service provider, Wirecard settled electronic payments at the interface between credit card companies on the one hand and retailers and other sellers on the other. The Dax group collapsed in the summer of 2020 and filed for bankruptcy after the board of directors admitted alleged sham bookings of 1.9 billion euros. The money is still missing today.
Crowds of private investors lost large sums, some of which they had invested in Wirecard shares that were now worthless. Many small shareholders had admired CEO Braun as a visionary technology guru. Braun himself, who as the largest Wirecard shareholder had become a billionaire, was also ruined.
Contradictory statements by the accused are foreseeable: Ex-CEO Braun rejects the allegations. Oliver Bellenhaus, on the other hand, the former head of the Wirecard subsidiary in Dubai, is serving as a key witness for the public prosecutor. Both are in custody.
The third accused is the former chief accountant of the Wirecard Group. He is expected to refuse to testify in court. A key figure in the affair is missing: the former sales director Jan Marsalek fled Germany in the summer of 2020 and is believed to be in Russia.
Deed is indisputable, but not those responsible
The Wirecard case is unique in German criminal history: If the court accepts the indictment, over three billion euros would be the highest sum ever stolen by a gang of fraudsters after the end of the Second World War. Apart from that, the CEO of a former DAX company has never been suspected of having formed a gang of fraudsters together with other executives.
What is disputed in the proceedings is not that there was criminal activity at Wirecard - just who is responsible for it. The chamber must clarify whether ex-CEO Braun was the perpetrator or the victim. In a statement published by his defense attorneys, the Austrian manager emphasized that the missing billions had been embezzled and put aside, including by the co-accused former manager in Dubai.
