Fugitive Jan Marsalek, was Austrian spy agency informant
BERLIN – German media report that a fugitive former top executive of payment company Wirecard was an informant for the Austrian spy agency BVT.
Jan Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of
Wirecard, faces allegations of fraud and other charges in connection with the
company's sudden bankruptcy earlier this year.
Munich-based Wirecard filed for protection from creditors in
June after executives admitted that 1.9 billion euros ($2.2 billion) listed as
being held in trust accounts in the Philippines probably did not exist.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily reported Friday that German
federal prosecutors have evidence Marsalek was a source for the BVT agency. The
newspaper cited a German government response to Left party lawmaker Fabio De
Masi.
German lawmaker Patrick Sensburg, who sits on the
parliamentary intelligence oversight committee, told business daily
Handelsblatt that Marsalek may have worked for several spy agencies
simultaneously. He didn't elaborate.
German federal police issued a wanted poster for Marsalek in
August. Interpol issued a so-called red notice for him on allegations of
“violations of the German duty on securities act and the securities trading
act, criminal breach of trust (and) especially serious case of fraud.”
As chief operating officer, Marsalek was in charge of all
operational business activities, including sales, and is suspected of having
inflated the balance sheet total and sales volume of the company, police said.
Former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun has been arrested, along
with the company's former chief financial officer and former head of
accounting.
Police allege that Braun and Marsalek incorporated
“fictitious proceeds from payment transactions relating to deals with so-called
third-party acquirers in order to present the company financially stronger and
more attractive to investors and customers."
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