Shortly before the payment service provider crashed, department store juggler Benko and Wirecard boss Braun were planning a “strategic partnership”…
It’s the lawsuit of the year. And the next. In Germany. For an Austrian. Markus Braun, once dazzling boss of payment service provider Wirecard, has to answer to the court in Munich-Stadelheim since last week. According to the indictment, it concerns gang and commercial fraud, breach of trust, balance falsification and market manipulation. In the summer of 2020, 1.9 billion euros would have disappeared into thin air. About 100 days of negotiations are tentatively planned to deal with one of Germany’s biggest economic scandals.
In the spring of 2020, a few months before the loss of billions, which should eventually mean the end for Wirecard, the world was still fine for Braun. He maintained close contact with a founder of the company who is currently on trial in Austria in the great Coroner corruption trial: department store and real estate juggler René Benko. As early as March 2021, krone.at reported on the alleged “media plans” of the two. On February 20, 2020, then-Wirecard boss Braun wrote to Benko and his advisor Dieter Berninghaus thanking him “for the very interesting conversation”: “I am confident that a very exciting strategic partnership can emerge between our two companies.”
The mediator
Meanwhile, the “Krone” has received an e-mail correspondence that shows at least who arranged the meeting between Benko and Braun: Christian Angermayer, a busy German billionaire with excellent relations with investor Peter Thiel, who is known as former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz took contract. Kurz had only been a summer guest in St. Tropez at the invitation of Angermayer’s Aurora Institute. Angermayer already had a fondness for Prime Minister Kurz, he admitted in “Profile” that he had wanted to support his policy. In the end, however, no financial contribution was made to the ÖVP.
In any case, Angermayer wrote to Braun and Benko on February 19, 2020: “Hello Markus, Rene. As discussed, meet tomorrow in Vienna. Cheers Christian”. Braun then specifies a time window. Benko writes back, “I’m on the 1st floor on the conference floor of the Park Hyatt – conference room 5 is reserved for us.” Nearly three years later, not only conference rooms but also seats in courtrooms have been reserved for Braun and Benko.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
