“I knew nothing about forgery or embezzlement. I was also not in a gang with anyone.” He was also a victim of fraud by other criminals at the bankrupt German payment service provider Wirecard. This is the defense of former CEO Markus Braun. An accountant now vehemently contradicts this. audit firm KPMG, Sven-Olaf Leitz, recalled Braun’s enormous pressure and threats to court.
German payment service provider Wirecard went bankrupt in June 2020 because reportedly 1.9 billion euros booked in escrow accounts in Asia could not be found. According to the system, the money never came. The prosecution accuses Braun and two co-defendants of inventing a large part of the trade and defrauding banks for three billion euros. Braun denies that. A co-defendant has confessed and appears as a key witness.
Leitz told the Munich court that KPMG has not found the money. Braun then assured him: “Believe me, everything is there. I have control knowledge.” All alarm bells went off with him, Leitz said. Former and currently fickle Wirecard sales manager Jan Marsalek fobbed off the examiners with the odd question, “Who else should have the money? Kim Jong Il maybe?”
No documents, but attempts to influence
As of October 2019, KPMG would examine balance sheets from 2016 to 2018 in a special audit on behalf of the Wirecard Supervisory Board and clarify whether allegations of manipulation in the “Financial Times” were warranted. But the test was very tough, very slow, Leitz said. Documents were simply not sent, money flows were not traceable.
“There were several attempts to influence us,” says Leitz. In April 2020, KPMG “lost confidence in further cooperation and said there is no point in continuing here”. Braun threatened legal action. Attempts were made to delete or change passages in the closing meeting.
KPMG eventually reported that a billion euros in trust accounts could not be proven. Braun subsequently issued a stock exchange notice that the special audit found no evidence of accounting falsification.
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.
