The former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun, accused of alleged billion-dollar fraud, is demanding that the judiciary search for a good two billion euros that have been missing since 2020. “One would have to determine how much of it can be retrieved,” Braun demanded on Thursday before the Munich I District Court.
The money is said to be proceeds held in Southeast Asian escrow accounts that were not found during the 2020 audit. This then led to the insolvency of the Dax group. “I am convinced that the business existed, but that essential parts did not flow into the escrow account,” emphasized Braun.
Braun contradicted the co-defendant key witness Oliver Bellenhaus, according to whose statement these proceeds were fictitious. Both managers have been in custody for over two and a half years and blame each other. Braun emphasized that he wanted to quit Bellenhaus in 2020 and remove Jan Marsalek, who had been in hiding since 2020, from power. This was not the case after the bankruptcy.
The former Wirecard boss put his own responsibility for the accounting scandal and the collapse of the Dax group into perspective. The presiding judge Markus Födisch presented Braun with a statement from one of his interrogations by the public prosecutor. At that time, Braun admitted that he had failed. “I wouldn’t put it that way today,” Braun said at the hearing.
The fourth criminal chamber wants to question the 53-year-old for a total of four process days. Chairman Födisch does not want to let Braun get away with any evasive answers: “You said the same thing in many words as before, namely nothing at all,” he once rebuked Braun.
