In the scandal surrounding the insolvency of the payment service provider Wirecard, the volatile board member Jan Marsalek is said to have had top-secret documents on the deadly neurotoxin Novitschok - from a ministry in Austria.
Wirecard scandal turns
into an agent thriller.
Ex-
Wirecard
board is said to
have boasted of a
top-secret
Novitschok
dossier.
Poison formula comes from the Austrian
Federal Ministry
- public prosecutor's office determined
Munich - The scandal surrounding the mega bankruptcy of the payment service provider
Wirecard is
growing more and more into a solid
agent thriller
.
According to a report in the Austrian daily
OE24
, the director
Jan Marsalek
, who was last responsible for day-to-day business, is
said to have had
a
top-secret dossier
on the
Novitschok
nerve gas
.
The trail for the source of the highly explosive documents leads to Marsalek's home country
Austria
.
This results from an internal QR code on the dossier.
Wirecard: Alpine republic is alarmed
The Alpine republic is accordingly alarmed.
Now the public prosecutor's office is investigating and is targeting three Austrian ministries: the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Economics and the Ministry of Defense.
The questionable dossier is said to have surfaced in 2018.
According to an earlier report by the renowned business newspaper Financial Times (FT), the volatile
Wirecard
board of directors, who have long been rumored to have had secret service contacts, bragged about the top secret Novichok papers in front of investors in London in 2018.
Wirecard manager had a secret formula for Novichok
The documents are said to be four top-secret reports by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (
OPCW
) on the poison gas attack on Sergei Skripal, including Novichok's secret chemical formula.
The
nerve gas developed
in the former
Soviet Union
in the 1970s
is considered one of the most dangerous poisons in the world.
According to reports, even a milligram skin contact is fatal.
In 2018, the Russian defector and
double agent
Sergej Skripal was murdered in the English city of Salisbury with Novitschok.
The Russian secret service is said to have been behind the attack.
British-Russian relations have been at a low since the insidious murder.
Wirecard board member Marsalek wanted to impress investors with Novitschok
According to FT
,
Marsalek
wanted to make an impression in the City of London
with the top-secret
Novichok dossier
in order to get investors back on track.
They had previously
put
Wirecard's
share price
under pressure
with so-called short-selling attacks
.
In short selling, investors borrow shares for a fee and then sell them in order to later buy them back at a lower price and return the borrowed shares.
Often they stir up negative news about the company in question.
Everything about the nerve toxin leak to Wirecard manager Marsalek >>> https://t.co/TwekbaTG6n
- oe24.at (@ Oe24at) July 30, 2020
Wirecard: Countless reports of questionable bookings
In
recent years,
Wirecard
has repeatedly been the subject of reports of questionable sales or overpriced acquisitions.
There
had also repeatedly been massive doubts about
Wirecard's
business model
and the balance sheets.
The FT in particular had pointed out numerous inconsistencies.
But despite all the criticism, the company from Aschheim near Munich rose to the Dax in September 2018.
In June 2019 the vertigo was exposed.
After 1.9 billion euros in equity had proven to be an air booking, the payment service provider had to file for bankruptcy.
In the meantime, the Munich public prosecutor's office is investigating suspicion of price manipulation, falsification of accounts and money laundering, as well as “commercial gang fraud”, and many employees are facing the end.
Former Wirecard boss
Markus Braun
, former CFO Burkhard Ley and the former chief accountant are in custody.
In total, more than three billion euros could be lost.
In addition, there are billions in compensation claims from
Wirecard
investors.
The EY auditor is also being investigated.
