Letter from fugitive Wirecard executive sparks court clash

Three years after Wirecard’s accounts were exposed as a multibillion work of fiction, lawyers at a Munich trial into the payment company’s collapse have clashed over a letter allegedly sent to the court by a fugitive executive.

Former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek vanished just before Wirecard declared bankruptcy in 2020 after an audit revealed a €1.9 billion hole in cash reserves in various Asian accounts.

Austrian-born Mr Marsalek, largely responsible for the Asian accounts, fled and – now the subject of an international arrest warrant – is believed to be living in Moscow under the name German Bazhenov.

Two weeks ago his defence lawyer filed with Munich district court an eight-page letter, allegedly written by Mr Marsalek, which does not address charges against him.

Letter from fugitive Wirecard executive sparks court clash

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Instead he reportedly challenges the narrative of Wirecard’s rise and fall given in evidence by Oliver Bellenhaus, a former Wirecard executive in Dubai turned witness for the state prosecutor.

In return for the promise of a lighter sentence, Mr Bellenhaus has testified that Wirecard former chief executive officer Markus Braun was not only aware of widespread fraud at the bank, but that he demanded executives forge documents and alter accounts retrospectively.

In return for participating in the fraud, Mr Bellenhaus claimed he received payments totalling €4.8 million over seven years.

Mr Braun, on trial since December over postwar Germany’s largest-ever corporate collapse, denies all charges and insists he was unaware of the Wirecard fraud. His lawyers have dubbed Mr Bellenhaus a “professional liar”.

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According to Wirtschaftswoche magazine, which first reported about the alleged Marsalek letter, the fugitive manager does not just attack Bellenhaus’s credibility. He also reportedly challenges claims by Munich state prosecutors, based on the findings of a state-appointed auditor, that there is no trace of the missing €1.9 billion in Wirecard Asian accounts.

Their conclusion: this money, the proceeds of Wirecard’s so-called “third-party business” overseen by Marsalek, never existed and was instead fabricated to allow the struggling bank to borrow from unwitting creditors.

Mr Braun’s defence lawyer Alfred Dierlamm has argued that the third-party business was real and that its real proceeds were stolen by Marsalek, Bellenhaus and others.

On Wednesday, Mr Dierlamm demanded the Marsalek letter be admitted as evidence to the court. Presiding judge Markus Födisch disagreed, suggesting the letter “was not exactly bursting with facts” and, in addition, written by a fugitive from justice.

In a heated exchange, Mr Dierlamm attacked the judge, asking: “Do you propose letting the letter vanish into a drawer?”

Mr Florian Eder, lawyer for Oliver Bellenhaus, declined to comment in detail on the alleged Marsalek letter, saying: “One can write a lot and say a lot, but one doesn’t have to believe it all.”

After a brief shouting match, the judge announced that he would make a ruling at a later date on the letter.

In June 2020, as Wirecard began to sink, Mr Marsalek told colleagues he would fly to the Philippines to seek out missing billions. Instead he leased a private jet in cash and flew from Vienna to Minsk – and disappeared.