Mount Acronis
About a Swiss IT sponsor and Wirecard entanglements
March 24, 2024 / Last edited 7 months ago
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Acronis is a large IT service provider based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. The company has global offices in 13 locations and was evaluated at $2.5 billion in 2021, it profited particularly from COVID years. Until 2022, one of its largest investors was a company named Monterosa Group, based in Switzerland as well. Acronis also partners with a subdivision of Monterosa Group, the Zurich-based Monterosa Services AG.
In September 2020, the Monterosa Group announced it was merging with another IT firm: CyOne AG based in Steinhausen, Switzerland. CyOne is the direct offspring of a company named Crypto AG, which was involved in a gigantic and decades-long spying operation. The CIA and Germany's foreign secret service BND bought a majority stake into Crypto AG through an offshore fund in 1970 and ordered engineers to solder spy electronics into their unique encryption machines. Crypto AG sold their equipment to many governments all over the world to encrypt their confidential communications, which could be intercepted and read by the CIA and BND.
Almost all press releases regarding the merger between Monterosa Group and Crypto AG's successor CyOne AG from September 2020 have been deleted from the internet.
Monterosa Group has various subsidiaries, one of them is the Monterosa Services AG, an IT solution and financial services provider, headquartered in Switzerland. Monterosa Services AG is mentioned in various requests for evidence read out during the Wirecard court proceeding in Munich, which began in December 2022. In a motion from March 2023, the Monterosa Services AG is explicitly mentioned as one of three companies alleged to have siphoned off at least 340 million Euros from Wirecard bank accounts before - not after - its insolvency.
The motion for evidence has been rejected by the Wirecard court multiple times. Since March 2023, investigational authorities mostly from Munich refuse to search Monterosa's offices.
Monterosa Services AG lists many high-ranking Swiss politicians as board members or directors. Along with mother company Monterosa Group, they form a strong alliance with IT service provider Acronis. Serguei Beloussov, a former CEO of Acronis, has been involved with Monterosa Group since 2015. He became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Monterosa Group in 2019. In March 2019, Acronis had announced a $147 million growth funding led by The Monterosa Group. Various reports confirmed the ties between Acronis and the two Monterosa companies.
Almost all press releases regarding the connections between Monterosa Group / Monterosa Services AG and Acronis have been deleted from the internet.
Acronis is the single major sponsor of the so-called 'MSP Global' business event, which took place from November 14 - 16, 2023 near Germany's former formula one race track Nuerburgring. Invited celebrity speakers there were Wirecard whistleblower Pav Gill and the Financial Times' highly-rewarded Wirecard journalist Dan McCrum.
Wirecard Interim CEO James Freis held a position in Switzerland following his few weeks appointment at Wirecard in 2020. BaFin's former key Wirecard manager Elisabeth Roegele is currently employed in Switzerland. BaFin's former director Felix Hufeld was recruited by the New York investment firm Apollo Management Inc., which in February 2023, just a few months after Hufeld's employment, purchased substantial assets from the dismantled and scandalous Credit Suisse Bank.
Former Acronis CEO Serguei Beloussov is involved with Acronis SCS, a cybersecurity division of Acronis. Beloussov is also chairman of the board of directors of Acronis, a member of the board of directors of the Swiss-Russian Chamber of Commerce, and a supervisory board member of TeamViewer, a remote desktop access company mentioned in the Wirecard court proceeding in March 2024. As mentioned above, Beloussov became Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Monterosa Group in 2019.
Acronis has a total of four Russian-born CEOs. When Beloussov stepped down as CEO in 2013, Ilya Zubarev became CEO until 2019, followed by another Moscow-born Acronis CEO: Sergey (Alex) Pinchev, who is the current CEO of Acronis. From 2007 to 2019, former Acronis CEOs Zubarev and Beloussov officially resided in Singapore, where Beloussov still resides today.
Acronis also partnered with the employer of whistleblower Pav Gill before Wirecard, financial services provider GoBear. The partnership allowed GoBear customers to purchase an Acronis cybersecurity software solution for home offices. The collaboration between the two companies ended in 2021, around the time Pav Gill was hired by a South Asian crypto company called Zipmex. Acronis engaged in the same partnership at Zipmex, implementing its home office cybersecurity suite. The collaboration ended just before Pav Gill left Zipmex again in 2023.
