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Photo: Tobias Hase / DPA
Tens of thousands of people in Germany regularly fall victim to investment fraud: 54,000 investors, for example, have entrusted their money to the bankrupt container provider P&R, 40,000 to the Wölbern fund, 11,000 to the real estate company S&K, and 25,000 to the investment company Göttinger Gruppe.
And now Wirecard.
Those affected are often accused of greed or told that they have fallen for absurd promises.
But if highly qualified auditors do not discover the fraud, but put their seal on the balance sheet year after year, if state overseers do not recognize the criminal machinations of the protagonists - how can one accuse ordinary citizens of having to see it?
In many ways, Germany is a paradise for financial crime and money laundering.
That costs every single citizen money - and to a much greater extent than many are probably aware.
Because scandals like the one about the payment service provider Wirecard or the one about the multi-billion dollar so-called cum-ex deals, which seem to take place far away from ordinary people in the boardrooms of large corporations, affect each and every one of us.
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