The Greens in the Bavarian state parliament are calling for the Wirecard scandal to be cleared up quickly and raising allegations against the Munich public prosecutor's office.
She is also puzzled by the role of the former Bavarian police chief Waldemar Kindler.
Munich
- A good week after the first meeting of the Wirecard committee of inquiry in Berlin, doubts are growing as to the extent to which the committee can clear up all the involvement of state authorities in the Wirecard case.
"Unfortunately, the investigation period is limited to the time starting from 2015," said the Bavarian state parliament member Martin Runge (Greens) of our newspaper.
In his estimation, Wirecard had already turned out to be a "fraud event" in 2008.
Although there have repeatedly been allegations against Wirecard, the Bavarian authorities and the financial supervisory authority Bafin in particular only followed up these allegations slowly or not at all.
An illegal casino became a "flower shop"
Runge refers to the year 2010: At that time, both the Bafin and the Munich I public prosecutor's office received criminal charges against Wirecard for money laundering in the billions.
The document is in our newspaper.
At the time, Wirecard was accused of “fraudulent manipulation” with which it was possible to continue to allow US citizens to gamble on the Internet, although online gambling had actually been banned in the USA since 2006.
At that time, Wirecard processed payments for the credit card provider Mastercard and recoded illegal casino payments in such a way that Mastercard looked as if the credit card payments had been made to a florist on the Internet, according to the advertiser.
In the industry, people talked about the “flower shop” at Wirecard.
“Mastercard does not recognize that behind the actual business with the US credit card customer is a prohibited game of chance,” it said in 2010 in the ad.
Wirecard accounts that were identified by Mastercard as illegal had a transaction volume of over one billion euros in 2009 and at that time would have been the main source of Wirecard profit with 40 million euros.
+
Martin Runge (Greens), Member of Parliament in Bavaria
© Ammy Berent
Although the former board members of the Aschheim group have been investigated for "commercial gang fraud" since the Wirecard bankruptcy this year, the old cases remain unsolved.
The public prosecutor's office is currently examining processes from 2015 - this is causing criticism in the state parliament.
"The naming of 2015 as the beginning of the rip-offs at Wirecard, that is, the blind work, the air bookings and the other bogus deals, can only be described as a diversionary maneuver by the public prosecutor at this point," objected Runge.
"Rather, the public prosecutor's office, specifically the Munich I public prosecutor's office, was concerned with gluing up, even covering up, its own failures and the failures of the financial supervision."
There seems to be something to the allegations made against Wirecard in 2010.
In July of this year, the “Wall Street Journal” reported that Wirecard incorrectly encrypted gambling transactions over ten years ago.
Accordingly, not only Mastercard, but also the credit card provider Visa had noticed dubious transactions at Wirecard.
According to the report, Visa had asked Wirecard to block certain retailers and complained that too many business at Wirecard came from high-risk areas such as gambling, pornography and unregulated health products.
Why wasn't the matter exposed?
The Munich public prosecutor's office said on Thursday that proceedings were initiated against those responsible for Wirecard in 2010 and that two years of “extensive” investigations were carried out.
In 2012 the proceedings were discontinued "because evidence of the crime could not be provided".
19 reports against Wirecard so far without result
The Green MP Runge does not want to be satisfied with that.
He sees little ambition in Bavaria anyway to clear up the Wirecard scandal in all its facets.
As a response from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice to the MPs shows, there were a total of 19 reports against Wirecard between 2010 and the beginning of June 2020.
Runge is also suspicious that Wirecard representatives inquired about money laundering prevention in the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA) of all places.
Karl Michael Scheufele, head of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, confirmed that there had actually been a meeting between LKA officials and a Wirecard representative.
"That was in March 2018 at Wirecard, where a Wirecard representative asked about all sorts of things, had questions about money laundering prevention, fraud prevention, terrorist financing and also questions about crypto currencies." The ministerial official said in August the stunned members of the Bundestag Finance Committee.
This can be read in the non-public minutes of the meeting that our newspaper has.
Former police chief arranges meetings
The meeting was arranged by the former Bavarian police chief Waldemar Kindler, who now worked as a lobbyist for Wirecard.
The state government admitted this in an answer to the Landtag Greens.
Accordingly, the ex-police chief himself took part in the “working meeting” between the LKA people and the Wirecard manager - the latter at least the money laundering officer of the Wirecard Bank.
"Regarding the subject of the conversation, it can be summarized that possible measures by Wirecard AG to prevent money laundering, fraud or terrorist financing as well as questions relating to crypto currencies were discussed," said the state government.
The exact content of the conversation remains unclear.
"We must now not only look to the committee of inquiry in Berlin when the Wirecard case involves the involvement of authorities and companies," said Runge.
"Just like at the federal level, there is also a lot of need for clarification and action at the state level, here due to the headquarters of Wirecard AG in Bavaria." The disaster must therefore urgently be dealt with in the Free State.