At the Wirecard trial, the prosecutor’s lead witness accused former CEO Markus Braun of being a key figure in a multi-billion dollar fraud. But manager Oliver Bellenhaus, who worked for Wirecard in Dubai until the group’s collapse in 2020, said little concrete about Braun’s exact role at the network on Monday.
🇧🇷Wirecard was a cancer“said Bellenhaus, who was charged along with Braun, before the Munich Regional Court.”There was a system of organized fraud.“Brown Be A”absolutist CEO” been – the core power of Wirecard. “dr Braun made sure we were all sailing in the same direction.🇧🇷
Braun and Bellenhaus have been in custody for two and a half years. The third accused is the former head of accounting. 🇧🇷Little did I know that I would go to bed with the rats and wake up with the plague.“Bellenhaus said of his involvement in the presumably the biggest fraud case in Germany since 1945 and the co-defendants; a phrase that President Markus Födisch then rebuked.
Wirecard was a payment service provider that primarily processed retail and internet credit card payments. According to the indictment, Wirecard set aside billions of euros in fabricated “third-party” sales through its Cardsystems Middle East subsidiary in Dubai, run by Bellenhaus. These third-party partners were companies that processed payments on behalf of Wirecard.
The Dax group collapsed in June 2020 because 1.9 billion third-party funds allegedly registered in Southeast Asian trust accounts could not be found.
A criminal gang of scammers
The Public Ministry accuses the three defendants and other suspects of a criminal scammers formed and with invented profits having deceived the creditors of the Dax group, which went bankrupt in 2020, by 3.1 billion euros.
The 49-year-old was the first of the three accused to testify on the third day of the trial. He is also the only one to admit the allegations: “I’m afraid of my own life.“Braun denies the allegations through his lawyers, which Bellenhaus has declared implausible.”He sees himself as a victim, and this is a familiar pattern.🇧🇷
However, Bellenhaus’ statement did not reveal when the scams began and how the alleged gang formed. Braun’s defense, in turn, accuses Bellenhaus of lacking credibility and embezzling millions of dollars in company funds.
🇧🇷Little lies became big lies“Bellenhaus left the beginnings of the criminal business at approx.”Little lies become big lies, and big lies are punished.However, he did report on an October 2019 meeting that Braun attended and which was therefore about how Wirecard could maintain the facade of made-up businesses in the face of a special audit of the books by accounting firm KPMG.
Braun accuses Bellenhaus
For Braun to be convicted as a gang leader or just a member, prosecutors must convince the court that he controlled the fraud or was actively involved. The manager has his defense lawyers explain that the missing billions did exist, but that immense sums were held by Bellenhaus, among others.
Bellenhaus categorically rejected this. According to Braun, the billions in the accounts of the former business partners cited by Braun are, at most, a small portion of Wirecard’s funds.
Braun’s defense attorney fights the lawsuit
Braun’s defense attorney, Alfred Dierlamm, wants to stop the proceedings. He accuses the Public Ministry of having started to investigate the actual payment flows too late.
Parties involved in the lawsuit would be flooded with new documents, the lawyer said – just before the lawsuit started 44,000 PDF pages, then another 11,000 pages. “The investigations that the Public Ministry lost in two years of proceedings and are now being carried out in parallel with the main hearing in progress are a bottomless pit”, said the defense lawyer. Dierlamm’s second allegation is that the Public Ministry withheld essential defense documents.
The Public Ministry rejected the criticism. “The files on this indictment are complete,” the investigating official said on request. The billions in the accounts of Wirecard’s former business partners cited by Braun and Dierlamm relate to transactions that are not part of the indictment and therefore irrelevant to the lawsuit. The Chamber has not yet decided on the suspension request.