Former employees and a ex-board members talk about the circumstances at the payment service provider Wirecard. They paint a shocking picture

The fraudulent manipulations at Wirecard have been running for around 15 years. An ex-board member also states that he informed the supervisory board in 2008. Isaan News, the independent news agency, received insider information from a resource in Singapore already in 2015 and Singapore authorities started investigations. At the same time the Singapore authorities also informed German authorities, supposedly BaFin and the Finance Ministry!

 Vienna - The events surrounding Wirecard are taking on increasingly bizarre views. A former board member now reports that the payment service provider had been in deficit 15 years before it went bankrupt. As of 2008, he would also have informed the Chairman of the Supervisory Board that the published figures had only been achieved through massive interventions in the accounting department. With these words, the "Handelsblatt" quotes the manager who wants to remain anonymous.

 But it gets even better: The talks that were supposedly scheduled with CEO Markus Braun would have been fruitless. Braun has now been arrested for the second time. The authorities accuse the 50-year-old Austrian of, among other things, falsifying the balance sheet and commercial gang fraud. It is emphasized that the presumption of innocence applies.

Story for the markets!

"It was only after a while that I realized that everything revolved around just one thing: producing a story for the capital markets," says the ex-board member of the "Handelsblatt". "The next capital increase, the next bond, the next loan." The manager himself left Wirecard many years ago and has since been surprised that those responsible have been able to continue for so long. This brings up the question again why the authorities did not intervene earlier. "I don't know anyone who has shown such linear growth over a long period of time as Wirecard. Except Bernie Madoff," said the ex-CEO.

As a reminder: Madoff had launched funds and paid high returns. However, the money distributed was that which other investors had reinvested. The pyramid game brought together in 2008, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in June 2009 - for damage of $ 65 billion.

Former Wirecard employees who were able to contact the "Handelsblatt" also say that it was never a question that Wirecard had been cheated. The only question was how long the fraudsters could fill their pockets before the dizziness was exposed. There was so much money involved that spending on spying on and intimidating peers or critics was a small item. The report also speaks of threats against individuals and their families , only recently such threats have been also received against reporters of Isaan News.

Planned for a long time

The fraud, the participants say, had been planned for a long time. "When I started, I quickly noticed that the board members had no idea about the business at all," says a manager who left the company years ago. "It didn't interest Braun and his board colleague Jan Marsalek at all. They spent the whole day thinking about what the banks and shareholders might like." Another ex-employee says: "Other companies have a stock market price, Wirecard was a stock market price with a company."

Many are now wondering how Wirecard was able to grow so quickly in the highly competitive market for payment processing. Braun once explained Wirecard's superiority with its highly innovative technology. While the competition boasted of well-known customers, Wirecard was primarily drawn to Asia. Most of the fraud is said to have taken place there

 Bafin boss in criticism

Especially in Singapore, from where the Group's Asian business was managed. According to the company, about 40 percent of the profit came from Asia in 2018. Around half of the 5,000 Wirecard employees have recently worked on the continent ( this is also incorrect, most employees of the Wirecard Software Group, worked from India remotely, so fraud was programmed from day one. Isaan News knows the Indian Software Market very well.

 Also Isaan News resources visited Wirecard Singapore some times ago, the adress was an office center with a few hired office center employees, taking care of phone calls and mail. No employees of Wirecard seen around.

The same story with Wirecard Munich, visited by an Isaan News associate, there were only Indian, Pakistani and a very few Western employees on the scene. The system looked very suspicious, so the associate discontinued talks with a Wirecard Manger of developing complicated ERP and SCM Payment Gateway software. The question was, for what did Wirecard Bank need a newly developed Payment Software, Banks are regulated by BAIT and must only use BAIT and BaFin certified Software like SEPA, SWIFT, SMARAGD and matter of fact around 60 other applications that work worldwide together with different standards and Banks.

In any case, it is still open why the German financial regulator (Bafin) did not find out about the Wirecard fraud. Because according to a media report, the Bafin has been in contact with Singapore's banking regulator (MAS) and the law enforcement agency since 2019. The two authorities "provided" (already in 2017) information on Wirecard to the Bafin, quoted a Bafin spokeswoman.

This in turn means that the President of the Bafin, Felix Hufeld, has incorrectly informed Members of the German Bundestag about the role of his authority in the Wirecard scandal. Specifically, it concerns the meeting of the Finance Committee in the Bundestag on July 1, at which Hufeld contested the allegation that his authority had not properly followed up on indications of market manipulations by Wirecards abroad

 Wrong statement

 According to the minutes of the non-public hearing, Hufeld said the Bafin "contacted the local Singapore supervisory authority" immediately after concrete evidence was available. She referred the police to whom the Bafin also turned. Waiting for an answer "to this day". As the "Spiegel" reported, Hufeld's statement is probably wrong. Upon request, the MAS ( Monetary Authorities of Singapore) in Singapore said last week that they and the police had shared "relevant information available" with their German colleagues. (Isaan News,July 28, 2020)

Bafin boss Hufeld misinformed the deputies

Isaan News  research shows: In the Wirecard affair, the head of financial supervision provided false information in the Bundestag's finance committee (01.08.2020 hearing). His authority now admitted this

The meeting of the Finance Committee in the German Bundestag on July 1 was dominated by the Wirecard scandal. A few days earlier, the payment service provider had filed for bankruptcy and plunged the German financial center into a severe crisis. Now Felix Hufeld, 59, the president of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin), should explain to the parliamentarians why his authority had failed to act properly. The minutes of the non-public meeting ( again to mislead the public and protect the main culprits) show that Hufeld came under increasing pressure in the course of the survey. One of the criticisms: The Bafin had not properly followed up on indications of market manipulation abroad. The chief of government did not want to accept this in the case of Singapore. According to the minutes of the meeting, his house "contacted the local supervisory authority" immediately after concrete information was available. ( This is again a lie, MAS contacted the German Ministry of Finance already in 2015, Isaan News resources reported that years ago). The colleagues from Singapore referred to the police, whereupon the Bafin turned there. One waits "until today for an answer," said Hufeld. He later repeated the impression that the Singapore authorities had abandoned the German supervisors.

This is a straight forward lie, the Isaan News reporter who lived in Singapore for many years, states, the worlds most correct and straight forward authorities are for sure Singaporean authorities. No corruption, no cover ups, very strict and deep investigations, the most law and order country in the world!