Former Wirecard boss Markus Braun arrested for second time
The former chief executive of Wirecard has been rearrested as Munich prosecutors accuse him of committing a multiyear fraud.
Markus Braun stepped down from the company last month after being accused of misrepresenting the payments company’s accounts and of market manipulation by falsifying income from transactions with so-called third-party acquirers.
The Financial Times reported prosecutors now suspect the firm’s accounting fraud started as early as 2015. Braun and other suspects allegedly agreed to inflate the Germany payments firm’s revenue.
Wirecard collapsed last month after it was revealed there was a huge blackhole in its accounts. At the start of this month, prosecutors raided Wirecard offices in Germany and two locations in Austria investigating the missing €1.9bn from its accounts.
Prosecutors arrested the head of a Dubai-based subsidiary on suspicion of aggravated fraud earlier this month. Oliver Bellenhaus was the second senior Wirecard employee to be arrested after Braun.
The firm’s former finance boss Burkhard Ley and the group’s head of accounting Stephan von Erffa have also reportedly been taken into custody today.
Former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek is wanted under an international arrest warrant. He has previously denied wrongdoing.
Recent reports have claimed Marsalek touted documents about the use of a Russian chemical weapon in the UK and bragged about his ties to the intelligence services.
Marsalek, who was Wirecard’s chief operating officer, disappeared last month in the run-up to the collapse of the payments firm. He reportedly used secret documents to forge links with traders to work out which were betting against Wirecard’s share price.
Prosecutors today reportedly said one suspect in the investigation had turned into a chief witness which had helped to advance the investigation significantly.