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Wirecard: In the Wirecard scandal, the financial supervisory authority Bafin not only overslept its supervisory duties.
On top of that, Bafin employees happily gambled along
Photo: Peter Kneffel / picture alliance / dpa
The financial supervisory authority Bafin is now aware of almost 500 private transactions by their employees with reference to the scandalous company Wirecard.
This emerges from information from the Federal Ministry of Finance to the FDP MP
Frank Schäffler
(51), which is available to the German Press Agency.
The "Rheinische Post" had previously reported on it.
The private transactions of the Bafin employees with Wirecard shares are particularly critical because the German financial supervisory authority temporarily banned the short sale of Wirecard shares, thereby protecting the company.
The former Dax group Wirecard, now insolvent, admitted air bookings of 1.9 billion euros in June and subsequently filed for bankruptcy.
As a service provider for cashless payments at checkouts and on the Internet, the company sat at the interface between merchants and credit card companies.
The Munich public prosecutor's office assumes that the company has shown fictitious profits since 2015, and is investigating commercial gang fraud.
An investigation committee of the German Bundestag tries to provide political clarification.
Did Bafin employees use information for private gain?
Bafin is currently examining private stock market transactions of its employees in which the Wirecard AG price played a role, for example buying or selling shares in the company.
There is a suspicion that employees of the financial supervisory authority could have used a possible information advantage for private gain.
Such insider trading is a criminal offense.
Bafin boss
Felix Hufeld
(59) recently sharply rejected allegations against the Bafin and argued that his authority was not adequately equipped to effectively supervise Wirecard.
495 private transactions were reported to Bafin between the beginning of 2018 and September 30, 2020, plus two transactions in 2017. 88 transactions were completed in 2018, 137 in 2019 and a total of 265 in the first half of 2020 - 106 of them in June.
They did 85 Bafin employees.
On June 25th, Wirecard filed for bankruptcy.
So far, only five private Wirecard-related stores are known for July and August.
The FDP MP Schäffler said: "It is shocking what comes to light in the financial supervision. An end does not seem to be in sight."
The Bafin is too lax with the rules of conduct for its own employees.