Germany confirms Wirecard executive’s ties to Austrian security service

The former chief operating officer of the bankrupt fintech Wirecard, Jan Marsalek, collaborated with Austria’s security service. This is reported by Sueddeutsche Zeitung, citing a statement from the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office said that an official of Austria’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT) supervised Marsalek ‘as a trusted person.’

However, the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office has no concrete evidence that the businessman conducted espionage against Germany or any other country.

In July, the Austrian Presse previously reported on Marsalek’s alleged espionage. According to its information, the Wirecard executive forwarded data obtained from the BVT and the Austrian Interior Ministry to the right-wing populist Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ).

The Financial Times at the same time reported that Marsalek boasted to financiers about his intelligence contacts and showed them secret documents about the Russian Novichok nerve agent.

As a reminder, Wirecard collapsed in June after a €1.9 billion shortfall was discovered. On 25 June the company filed for bankruptcy.

The former Wirecard CEO Markus Braun was arrested on suspicion of falsifying balance-sheet data on the company’s accounts.

According to the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Marsalek, after his disappearance, carried out a large transfer in bitcoins and is allegedly hiding in Russia under the control of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Marsalek has been placed on an international arrest warrant on suspicion of financial fraud.

Media report that Marsalek used Wirecard to establish business contacts with operators of Russian online casinos and gambling sites.

In early October, Handelsblatt established a link between the former Wirecard top executive and the Russian RDIF Bank.

For more on Wirecard’s collapse, read ForkLog’s special report.

How Wirecard collapsed: dubious clients, falsified reports and a €2 billion hole

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