The first Wirecard indictment was approved by the competent court in Germany. The trial against Wirecard co-founder and CEO Markus Braun and his alleged accomplices will begin sometime in the next few months. Reading the excerpts of the indictment has shaken us a bit. For years, the German public prosecutor’s office has protected Wirecard. This indictment only scratches the surface of a global scheme with many more players. Evidently, the German prosecutors have no ambition to disclose it and only go for the low-hanging fruits.
The present indictment apparently only addresses the period from 2015 onwards and focuses on the Wirecard Group without going into more detail about the satellite companies. Markus Braun, his Chief Financial Officer Stephan von Erffa, and the former Wirecard representative in Dubai, Oliver Bellenhaus, are charged with accounting manipulation, market manipulation, embezzlement, and gang formation. The consolidated financial statements for the years 2015 to 2018 are alleged to have been deliberately false and to have inaccurately reflected the Group’s circumstances. The period before 2015 apparently remains unnoticed, as do the satellite companies, some of which still exist today.
