Sun24 News

Wirecard Sacked, Season 1: Fourth episode, The insolvency

An investigative podcast about the Wirecard scandal in Munich's Stadelheim court

Another episode of the 'Wirecard Sacked' podcast, this season 1 is about detailed insider accounts of the proceedings in Munich's Stadelheim prison courtroom that have been going on for well over a year.

This is the fourth episode about the Wirecard trial, more will follow every 2 to 3 days.

Contents:
The peanuts of the chief public prosecutor (→ 00:55)
The financial transaction records at last minute (→ 02:54)
The testimony of James Freis (→ 03:27)
The TPA-Reality-Check document (→ 05:28)
The application for insolvency (→ 07:29)
The insolvency administrator (→ 09:14)

Season 1, Episode 4

Wirecard Sacked - The Court Proceeding

00:00

With reference to the Loch Ness monster mentioned from minute 10:27, here our article from mid 2024, which led to the mentioning of it:
The Wirecard Summer Gap - About extorted confessions and Bavarian radio news

Here a link to from minute 05:28 on discussed TPA-Reality-Check document:
Response to eMail of insolvency administrator's law firm Jaffé as a reaction to Joerg's previously submitted „J’Accuse“ document

And here again the article to the court appearance of Wirecard interim CEO James Freis from April 2023:
The Third Man - About Wirecard's interim CEO James Freis and nice shoes

Previous
Episode 3 - The Motions

Next
Episode 5 - The IT


Transcript 

(Music) 

Wirecard Sacked, Sun24 News Podcast, Season 1, Episode 4. 

Martin: A condemnation by the mass media press was already taking place at the time and they had hardly moved on. I had the impression that it didn't matter what happened in the courtroom. 

Jörg: In fact, I later read very carefully through almost all the articles that appeared at the start of the trial. And it was made quite clear that the crucial questions in court were the credibility of Oliver Bellenhaus and, above all, the flow of money. So it was clearly stated that the money flows, which the media already knew about before the start of the trial, would be central. Then the proceedings begin and what was the public prosecutor's favorite word? Irrelevant. 340 million is also completely irrelevant. I almost said peanuts. Mr. Bühring's peanuts are 2 billion. 

Martin: The explanation of the public prosecutor's office to this day is that these hundreds of millions of found funds are presented as unexplained income that may or may not somehow belong to the Wirecard Group, as not worthy of consideration. 

Jörg: It went back and forth a bit, because I don't think Dierlamm said from the beginning what he said at the end. Whereby you simply have to take into account, as you said, that Markus Braun started these proceedings without having the data. They had a defense strategy, which of course changed as they received more information. But what they were accused of by the media and the public prosecutor's office, which is actually completely crazy. You think about it yourself, he's in a criminal case like this, of course he defends himself with the knowledge he has and his defense changes. If he has more information, that speaks for him rather than against him, because if he is making everything up, it would have been much smarter to take a uniform line, as Mr. Bellenhaus did, by the way, who after a year and a half stands up and covers a show for three days. 

(Music) 

Jörg: But the credibility is not questioned and Markus Braun, who understandably changes his defense strategy, is reproached for it. So sorry, I'm getting agitated because I'm simply saying that someone must notice that this is absurd. 

Martin: Yes, maybe we really need a few more ice cubes to cool us down, it's relatively cool outside. But it's really unbelievable, you have to say right away, for people who perhaps don't have the technical understanding, that these vast amounts of financial transaction data, which were practically handed over to Dr. Braun's defense two and a half weeks before the start of the trial, in order to analyze them, you first need time, tools and professionals who can analyze this data relatively quickly, there are modern AI tools and such. But it's an effort, it's a huge effort to actually find the needle in the haystack from this vast amount of data. That actually happened through the defense of Dr. Braun. Then there were these motions for evidence, and then at some point at the end of April, one of the key witnesses was invited. By then, of course, the auditorium had thinned out with each passing week, and there were fewer and fewer journalists. I sometimes sat there alone as a journalist representative, because the representatives of the mass media decided to send fewer of their people there, because the topic had been ticked off for many. Then a key witness came, James Freiss, or is he called Fries, we still don't agree on that today. And there I was, I think, sitting next to a second journalist, maybe, I can't remember who was there, but we were, the people sitting at the back, you could count them on one hand. I was there. 

Jörg: I wasn't there, I don't think, I wasn't there. I think we met up outside afterwards. 

Martin: Exactly, we talked about the appointment at another time afterwards. And that day was exciting. After the interrogation, which went on for hours and was partly held in English, the judge is of course fluent in the language, I wrote an article about what went on there and what James Freiss said was bizarre, confusing and counterproductive. All in one, a sum of impressions that I couldn't really grasp until today. I'll post it again under this episode so that people can maybe read it again. And that was really exciting. So there were a few things that you could also shed light on. 

Jörg: I'd like to talk very briefly about these two days, because what he also said, he said quite clearly that this was the EY complete failure. But he also said, and this was not written in the media, that KPMG had delivered a very poor performance. That was the second thing. And I think he even accused them of having enriched themselves.

And what he also said is a very important document in this whole process, is the TPA reality check. This is, so to speak, the check with the result that there was no deal. James Fries said that he did not want this to be considered an investigation, because those who carried out the investigation were not at all qualified to do so. Now you have to be careful. Group Compliance, Wirecard, prepared this report under the supervision of a law firm. They gave it to Jaffe and he brought it to the committee of inquiry as the Jaffe report. The genesis of this report, and if you look at the abridged version of the report I have at home, it's unbelievable, a third of the sources are press articles. I think I can call it horrendous. There was also a fierce dispute with the Jaffe law firm, between me and Jaffe. But the point is, it's not just Jörg who is saying this. It's James Fries, who established in 24 hours that there are no escrow accounts and so on. He says that the investigation, on which more or less the committee of inquiry and large parts of the indictment are based, he says he will no longer call it an investigation. You don't have to let that roll off your tongue. What a hammer that is. 

Martin: This TPA reality check is actually a key document. Rumor has it that it was somehow drawn up on the initiative of the public prosecutor's office. So that the public prosecutor's office is said to have indirectly supported this report or demanded one or something. Is there anything to these rumors? 

Jörg: That's the next barrel you can open. I think the TPA reality check has something to do with the insolvency. We'll certainly have to get to that. On June 25, a week after the problems became known, Wirecard filed for insolvency. 

Martin: Through James Freis. 

Jörg: Yes, exactly, the Management Board, Freis, von Knoop and Steidl. 

Martin: He actually submitted the application and then signed it. 

Jörg: That's very exciting, there's already information available. But only very briefly, that was on June 25. But the insolvency proceedings were only opened in August. That means, firstly, you can ask whether the insolvency was necessary at all. A question that many people consider absurd, but I don't. And then, above all, ask whether these insolvency proceedings had to be opened in August, after two months, when there was time and accounts were already known. And this is where the TPA reality check plays a major role, because it simply confirms the thesis that there were no fiduciary accounts is the same as saying there was no business. And this equation is wrong. How big would the uproar actually be if the insolvency was due to possibly, I don't know how to put it, an expert opinion where James Fries says it's not even an expert opinion for him and the two people who did it don't even have the qualifications. And it's the biased Group Compliance of Wirecard. And so there is explosive material lurking there. I don't know, I'd like to talk about something else now, please. 

Martin: Let's go back to the two days of James Fries again, because, but now I'm getting back to that, because James Fries testified in court at the time that Mr. Jaffe, the insolvency administrator, was already in charge before he was even officially appointed by the court temporarily, at least on June 25, then possibly as insolvency administrator from August. To cut a long story short, James Fries confirmed that Mr. Jaffe had already arrived at his office days before the insolvency agreement was filed. That's what James Fries said during the proceedings, and that's when I fell off my chair for the third time and said, now it's finally over. So now, tomorrow, the proceedings will be put on hold, I thought to myself, and everything will be re-examined and must logically be re-examined. But there too, or am I mistaken, did I dream I was seeing something, or was I in a parallelization? 

Jörg: Well, Jaffe is, I have to admit, Mr. Jaffe, Dr. Michael Jaffe, I'll think about those words carefully. 

Martin: Absolutely. The ghost that is buzzing around us and that nobody sees, but that is permanent. 

Jörg: I will very carefully interject the following, for example. At the beginning of the trial, several journalists wrote that Michael Jaffe would be the central witness in Stadelheim. Where is he? Where is Michael Jaffe actually? 

Martin: He's like Loch Ness, the little monster from the Scottish lake - disappeared. 

Jörg: So as I said, we now have, how long has the trial been going on and Michael Jaffe, the most important, the actual key witness, because in the end it was the case that Michael Jaffe dictated to Oliver Bellenhaus, well. 

Martin: Careful, the ice is getting thin, Jörg, the ice is getting very thin. You've experienced a lot this week, we'll get to what happened this week in a moment, so be careful. 

Jörg: Well then, I'll try it again very carefully. The resolution of the Wirecard case formulated on July 22 was a joint process involving various parties.

(Music)

Speaker:
Jörg - longtime Wirecard expert and investigator
Martin - Investigative lead at Sun24 News and Wirecard expert

Organization and realization:
Martin D. / Sun24 News

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 10 - Final

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The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 9

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The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 8

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The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 7

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The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 6

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The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 5

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The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 3

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The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 2

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 1

The Wirecard Summer Gap

About extorted confessions and Bavarian radio news

Money launding is not my thing

About Commerzbank and cancelled Wirecard credit lines

Wirecard Chances

About supervisory board advising lawyers

The Wirecard PR Court

About an obscure questioning of a Wirecard lawyer

Wirecard Rogue

About crazy judiciary talks and on-target court motions

Wirecard Untangled

About unsolved issues in Germany's master finance scandal

La Vie en Wirecard

About strong Spanish financial analyses and weak French allegations

All Inside The Singapore Folder

About Wirecard book keepings an email conversations

Grand Vision Trust

A Wirecard Bank Director and Relationship Managements

Mount Interim

About a Wirecard interim-CEO on a Swiss rose mountain

Harvesting Wirecard

About Swiss roses and Wirecard bears

The PayLondon Group

About bears from London and Wirecard targetings

Mount Acronis

About a Swiss IT sponsor and Wirecard entanglements

Magic Pav

About a Wirecard whistleblower and magic law firms

The Trial

About a Wirecard release of prisoner and Franz Kafka's unfinished works

The Grand Orchestra

About Wirecard's share price and dolphins against sharks

Mount Wirecard

About Swiss Wirecard entanglements and the remains of Crypto AG

Wirecard Court Halftime

About seven months in Munich Stadelheim and the miracle of Bern

Pandora's Box

About Wirecard's IT Architectures

The Third Man

About Wirecard's interim CEO James Freis and nice shoes

Deflective Attorneys

About a five hours Wirecard indictment

Bavariacard

About a Germanic Wirecard Poker

A Munich Fraud

Wirecard and Munich's Public Prosecutor's Office

Royal Courts of Wirecard

About a Wirecard Lawsuit and Quantum Physics

Brilliant Consultants

About Wirecard's financial auditors and the chess game

Back To The Wirecard

About the roots of the insolvent German payment provider

BaFin The Thirteenth

An April 13th day at the Wirecard investigational committee