1.9 billion euros air bookings - on his escape, ex-Wirecard manager Marsalek apparently continues his fraud with criminal energy. And deliberately blurs all traces.
Manila (dpa) - In the billions in the balance sheet scandal at the Dax group Wirecard, Filipino immigration officials are said to have forged travel documents from the fugitive ex-sales director Jan Marsalek.
Investigators in the Southeast Asian island nation recommended on Thursday that a complaint be filed against the two suspects. The officials had entered incorrect entries in the database of the immigration office.
According to this, Marsalek would have arrived in the capital Manila on June 23 and left the Philippines the following day from the province of Cebu - which is on another island, according to a statement from the national investigative authority.
However, on June 24th there was no flight from Cebu to China, where Marsalek is said to have traveled. In addition, the passport details of the Austrian were not added to the information - as is customary with such entries. According to official data, Marsalek was last in Manila on March 3 and left the country two days later - months before the scandal started.
"The entries for June 23rd and 24th, 2020 are both wrong and apparently just a diversion to draw the attention of the European authorities to the Philippines rather than their own jurisdiction," the agency said. The manager has been in hiding since his release on June 22nd. He is suspected of having inflated total assets and sales volume through sham deals together with other accused.
Justice Minister Menardo Guevarra also confirmed the death of a German manager in Manila on Thursday, whose links to the scandal are part of the investigation. The 45-year-old is said to have been the ex-Asia boss at Wirecard and a close confidante of Marsalek. He died of natural causes and was cremated on July 27 in a hospital in Paranaque City, Metro Manila.
Wirecard is missing a total of 1.9 billion euros, which the group wanted to post on the credit side in its 2019 annual balance sheet - the result of probably nonexistent air transactions with subcontractors in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The missing money should actually be in Filipino escrow accounts. In June it turned out that neither the billions nor the trust accounts existed.
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