Interest in the Wirecard process had recently dropped sharply, the negotiations before the Munich I Regional Court against the accused former CEO Markus Braun and other ex-managers, which have been ongoing since December 2022, are progressing too slowly. But the surprising sign of life from the ex-board member Jan Marsalek, who submitted a statement to the court through his lawyer, has brought the spectacular scandal surrounding the Dax group, which went under in 2020, back into the headlines. Capital answers the most important questions about the letter – and its importance for the criminal proceedings against ex-Wirecard boss Braun.
The statement to the criminal division of the regional court, which is dealing with the scandal at the once celebrated payment service provider in one of the largest economic processes of the post-war period, is a letter from Marsalek’s lawyer Frank Eckstein. The exact wording of the eight-page letter, which was first reported on Tuesday by “Wirtschaftswoche”, is not yet known. From circles involved in the process, it is said that it reflects Marsalek’s perspective on several aspects that are of central importance to the process.
Among other things, the volatile ex-manager is said to have stated that the business with so-called third-party partners in Asia, which is very lucrative on paper, which is at the center of the accounting scandal at Wirecard and for which Marsalek was responsible as a board member, actually existed. This statement contradicts the investigations of the Munich I public prosecutor’s office. According to the investigators’ findings, the third-party business was only an illusion, and the alleged proceeds of 1.9 billion euros deposited in trust accounts in Asia did not exist – a central point on which the public prosecutor’s office based its charge against Braun.
In addition, Eckstein’s letter to the court is said to contain exculpatory assessments by Marsalek of several of his former colleagues who are the focus of the judiciary. In addition to ex-CEO Braun, these include the accused former Wirecard chief accountant Stephan von Erffa and long-time CFO Burkhard Ley, against whom the public prosecutor is investigating – but who is not one of the accused in the current trial and who rejects the allegations.
On the other hand, Marsalek is said to contradict statements made in the process by the former Dubai governor Oliver Bellenhaus. After the bankruptcy of the payment group in June 2020, Bellenhaus turned himself in to the authorities in Munich and is now serving as a key witness for the public prosecutor. His credibility is therefore of central importance to the prosecutors and the trial. The letter to the court set out the points on which Bellenhaus lied, said Braun’s chief defense attorney Alfred Dierlamm at the beginning of the hearing on Wednesday. This shows that the Braun camp apparently sees Marsalek as a defense witness – even if the current letter is not supposed to contain any reliable evidence such as documents.
Less than would be desirable. First and foremost, Marsalek’s statement through his lawyer proves that the ex-manager wanted by Interpol is alive and following the trial of his former colleagues. It remains unclear where Marsalek is today. There were many indications that the 43-year-old Austrian, who had close contacts with Russia when he was at Wirecard, initially went into hiding in Moscow after fleeing – possibly under the care of Russian security authorities.
There is evidence that Marsalek had been interested in security issues for years and maintained contacts in the intelligence community. As the manager of a corporation whose roots lie in dealings with shady corners of the Internet and who had plenty of data on financial transactions, he was also of interest to security circles, according to witnesses such as former German intelligence coordinator Bernd Schmidbauer in the Bundestag investigative committee.
Most recently, in spring 2022, it became known that Russian authorities had already sent the German foreign intelligence service BND an offer to question Marsalek the year before. However, the BND rejected this offer, allegedly because it suspected a trap on the Russian side. At times Marsalek is said to have lived in the posh Moscow suburb of Razdory in a particularly secure housing complex. It is unclear where and under what conditions he is today, regardless of what he has said about the trial. His lawyer may not even know this. And even if they did, there is no way for the law enforcement authorities to get to Marsalek’s current whereabouts through the lawyer – as long as he does not cooperate.
As became clear on Wednesday, the letter from Marsalek’s attorney Eckstein was received by the court more than a week ago – at least before the recent major appearance of Braun’s chief defense attorney Dierlamm in the process. Last Thursday, Dierlamm made a statement that had been announced several weeks ago and submitted several extensive applications for evidence with which he claims he wants to unhinge the prosecutor’s charge and turn the process around. The core of Dierlamm’s line of defense, which he had been pursuing for a long time, for which he now brought in new evidence: The third-party business at Wirecard actually existed, but billions in proceeds from it were withdrawn and embezzled behind the back of CEO Braun – by a “gang” around Marsalek and Bellenhaus.
One can only speculate as to whether Marsalek’s statement is related to what is currently happening in the trial. When the fugitive manager states that the ominous third-party business actually existed – which not only contradicts the findings of the public prosecutor’s office, but also those of Wirecard’s insolvency administrator Michael Jaffé – then this initially seems to support the description of the Braun camp. However, the ex-CEO’s defense is based on the thesis that the supposedly real third-party proceeds were misappropriated by a circle around Marsalek. The letter is not intended to provide any support for this part of the argument – ??otherwise Marsalek would also seriously incriminate himself.
At the beginning of the hearing on Wednesday there was a skirmish between Braun defender Dierlamm on the one hand and the presiding judge Markus Födisch and prosecutor Inga Lemmers. Dierlamm insists that the statement by Marsalek’s lawyer be introduced into the process and made known to the public – apparently because he sees Marsalek’s statements as an exoneration of his client. Födisch was reserved, also on the question of whether the information provided by Braun’s former board colleague was in stark contrast to the allegations made by the public prosecutor’s office and the key witness Bellenhaus.
It could be interesting if Marsalek should follow up in the future and substantiate his account with evidence such as bank statements, communication or other documents – if he wanted and could do this. In any case, the process continued routinely on Wednesday after the initial exchange of blows over Marsalek’s statement – with the hearing of witnesses from the former product director Susanne Steidl.
In principle, statements by Marsalek must be viewed with great skepticism. The longtime confidant of CEO Braun is responsible for the third-party business, which according to former employees only a few in the group had any insight into, himself at the center of the scandal. He is a suspect in a preliminary investigation, but escaped prosecution and the clarification of the allegations by fleeing.
In addition, in the years before the bankruptcy, Marsalek had no qualms about fooling the judicial authorities and telling them sometimes adventurous stories in order to defend the company and himself against the allegations of fraud that were already being made at the time. At the beginning of 2019, for example, Marsalek played a key role in presenting Wirecard to the Munich public prosecutor’s office as the victim of an attempted blackmail by representatives of the “Financial Times” and the US news agency Bloomberg – whereupon the German authorities jumped to the side of the group and investigated critical journalists. The minutes of a witness hearing by Marsalek at the public prosecutor’s office read like a fairy tale hour.
In addition, in June 2020, after it became clear that the 1.9 billion euros in trust accounts in Asia did not actually exist, the manager told the then chief investigator Hildegard Bäumler-Hösl that he was traveling to the Philippines to look for the money. In fact, he made his way to Minsk unmolested, from where he is believed to have traveled on to Russia.
All of this does not mean that all of Marsalek’s statements are automatically wrong today. But as long as it has not been clarified what his relationship is to Russian or other security authorities and what interests they have with regard to the clarification of the Wirecard scandal and the process, there are considerable doubts – especially as long as he does not present any evidence. The defender of key witnesses Bellenhaus, Florian Eder, put it to the “Wirtschaftswoche” like this: “You can write a lot and say a lot, but you don’t have to believe everything.”
The article first appeared on capital.de.
