The former managing director of a Wirecard subsidiary in Dubai admitted years of falsification of the balance sheet, but also put a heavy burden on the former CEO Markus Braun (front).
(Photo: dpa)
Munich In the Wirecard trial, the prosecutor’s key witness accused former CEO Markus Braun as a key figure in years of billions in fraud. “Wirecard was a cancerous growth,” said co-defendant manager Oliver Bellenhaus on Monday before the Munich Regional Court. “There was a system of organized fraud.”
Braun was an “absolute CEO”. “If he said something, it was done that way.” He was the core on which everything was geared. Bellenhaus spoke of “gamblers, criminals and traitors”. “I consciously agree with that. Blind loyalty to Braun and Marsalek got me in jail.”
Wirecard was his identity for 20 years, said Bellenhaus. “Small lies became big lies, big lies are punished.” The system was a scam from the start.
Bellenhaus was Wirecard’s governor in Dubai and is considered a key witness in the process. Shortly after Wirecard went bankrupt in the summer of 2020, he turned himself in to the Munich authorities and gave extensive testimony to the public prosecutor.
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In his 100-page statement, the 49-year-old traced how balance sheets were embellished and how sales were invented. Braun was driven to let the sales figures rise immeasurably, his indicator was the share price. He was incredibly lucky. Braun and the fugitive co-chairman Jan Marsalek everything was successful. Bellenhaus described himself as “Wirecard’s rainmaker”.
On the third day of the trial, the 49-year-old was the first of the three accused to testify; he is also the only one to admit the allegations. “I’m shocked about my own life,” said the key witness – and emphasized how much he regretted the immense damage.
However, Bellenhaus’ statement did not reveal when the fraud began and how the Wirecard gang is said to have formed. Braun’s defense accuses him of having set aside and embezzled millions of dollars in company money.
“Big lies became big lies,” Bellenhaus said about the beginnings of the criminal business. However, he reported on several meetings in which Braun and other suspects are said to have taken part and discussed how the facade of the invented business could be preserved.
More on the Wirecard process:
The public prosecutor’s office also bases their charges on his statements on the so-called third-party business in Asia, which he controlled in part from Dubai. According to Bellenhaus and the public prosecutor’s office, the deals were invented.
Ex-CEO Braun insists they existed and the money was siphoned off by others involved. “He sees himself as a victim, and that’s a well-known pattern,” Bellenhaus said of his former boss. Now both have been in custody for two and a half years, the third accused is the former Wirecard chief accountant.
Bellenhaus accused Braun of “misconceptions”. If the third-party business had existed and been profitable, traces of it should have been found even after the Wirecard collapse. “After June 18, 2020, all of this is said to have disappeared overnight without a trace,” said Bellenhaus. More than 1000 dealers would have had to look for a new partner for payment processing. “Such a processing vacuum should have caused some unrest throughout the industry.”
Braun’s lawyer sharply criticizes the authorities
Braun’s defense attorney Alfred Dierlamm had previously accused the former Wirecard managing director in Dubai that he was not credible as a key witness and had concealed the embezzlement of millions during the investigation. Dierlamm accused the public prosecutor of serious mistakes and omissions in the investigation and therefore wants to have the proceedings stopped.
Those involved in the proceedings would be flooded with new documents, said the lawyer – 44,000 PDF pages shortly before the start of the process, and then another 11,000 pages. “The investigations that the public prosecutor’s office has missed in two years of proceedings and are now being carried out parallel to the ongoing main hearing are a bottomless pit,” said the defense attorney. Dierlamm’s second, equally serious allegation is that the public prosecutor’s office withheld essential documents from the defense.
The public prosecutor rejected the criticism. “The files on this indictment are complete,” said the investigating authority on request. The billions in the accounts of former Wirecard business partners cited by Braun and Dierlamm relate to transactions that are not part of the indictment and are therefore irrelevant to the proceedings. The Chamber has not yet decided on the suspension request.
More: How Asia board member Jan Marsalek made 315 million euros disappear