03/01/2024 06:57 (current 03/01/2024 06:57)
The Wirecard process is dragging on. ©Portal
The Wirecard trial over what is believed to be the biggest accounting fraud case in post-war German history could take almost twice as long as originally planned.
The fourth criminal chamber of the Munich Regional Court I has scheduled an additional 86 trial days until December 19 this year. A court spokesperson said this upon request.
1.9 billion euros left
The trial against former CEO Markus Braun, key witness Oliver Bellenhaus and the former chief accountant of the company that went bankrupt in 2020 has been ongoing since December 8, 2022. The chamber had originally scheduled 100 days of negotiations, the last of which would be was January 10th next week.
Wirecard collapsed in the summer of 2020 after auditors were unable to find 1.9 billion euros that should be recorded on the balance sheet. According to the prosecution, the money never existed. Braun and his accomplices are said to have acted as a criminal gang to falsify transactions in order to keep the loss-making company afloat.
Mutual accusations
However, Braun, who was arrested in July 2020 – almost three and a half years ago – has pleaded not guilty. According to the Austrian manager, the real criminals around the former sales director Jan Marsalek, who went into hiding, and the key witness Bellenhaus, had made huge sums of money for the website.
Braun and Bellenhaus blame each other and none of the witnesses interviewed so far have been able to clarify the matter. It is unclear whether the 1.9 billion euros missing since the summer of 2020 ever existed – and, if so, who ended up embezzling the funds. Key witness Bellenhaus, who has also been in custody since July 2020, denies Braun's accusations.
Witnesses did not appear
One of the reasons the investigation is so difficult is that the crime scenes largely took place in Asia: in Dubai, Singapore, the Philippines and other Asian countries. The court called numerous foreign witnesses in recent months, but they did not appear.
So far, mainly former employees of Wirecard's former headquarters in Aschheim, near Munich, have testified. However, Braun's former subordinates declared that they knew nothing about the billion-dollar fraud.
The first witnesses of the new year will be the former head of Wirecard Bank's legal department on January 10, followed by a former sales manager the next day.