He is publicly wanted: ex-Wirecard manager Jan Marsalek
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In the billions of dollars in accounting scandal at the Dax group Wirecard, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is publicly looking for the fugitive ex-sales director Jan Marsalek. The Austrian manager was a member of the board of directors at Wirecard, a service provider for cashless payments at checkouts and on the Internet, until June 2020. "On the basis of the current results of the investigation, it is considered very likely that the person sought will be staying abroad," said the BKA in Wiesbaden. The case will be the subject of the ZDF program "Aktenzeichen XY ... unsolved".
Marsalek, together with other accused, is said to have inflated total assets and sales volume through sham deals in order to make the company more financially strong and more attractive for investors and customers. The investigators suspect Marsalek of the particularly serious case of embezzlement and professional gang fraud. The Munich public prosecutor's office assumes that banks and investors could have lost over three billion euros.
Wirecard had granted dummy bookings in the amount of allegedly 1.9 billion euros, which the group wanted to account for in its 2019 annual balance sheet. For this, probably nonexistent air deals with subcontractors in Southeast Asia and the Middle East were reported.
Marsalek is considered a key figure in the scandal alongside ex-CEO Markus Braun. While Braun is in custody, Marsalek apparently fled to Belarus before being arrested. In addition to the fraud allegations, Marsalek is also accused of working with private hacking companies.
Icon: The mirrorhba / dpa
