Wirecard Sacked, Season 1: First episode, The Start

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

Every few days, another 'Wirecard Sacked' podcast episode will be released, this Season 1 is about detailed inside accounts of the Wirecard trial in Munich's Stadelheim prison courtroom that has been going on for well over a year.

This is the first episode about the Wirecard trial, the beginning of a number of episodes in Season 1 of the 'Wirecard Sacked' podcast.

Table of content:
Who is Jörg ? (→ 0:50)
Mid 2020 (→ 01:41)
The Public Prosecutor's Press Conference (→ 02:45)
The narrative of the indictments (→ 03:10)
The imprisonments (→ 04:16)
The March 2022 explanations of the public prosecutors (→ 08:41)
The fabricated 'ill-led victim' narrative of the mass media (→ 10:07)

Season 1, Episode 1

Wirecard Sacked - The Court Proceeding

00:00

Here are two links to the press conference of the Munich public prosecutor's office from July 22, 2020 mentioned in the podcast from about minute 04:10:
a) https://youtube.com/watch?v=jJe6InJspg8&t=32
b) https://youtube.com/watch?v=oCasQb17YJ8&t=5

And here is the link to the very important document from the Munich public prosecutor's office from March 2022:
https://www.justiz.bayern.de/gerichte-und-behoerden/staatsanwaltschaft/muenchen-1/presse/2022/2.php

Next
Episode 2 - The Court Trial's Beginning


Transcript 

(Music) 

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

Martin: So, good afternoon everyone for the first podcast, Sun24 Podcast on the topic of Wirecard. We have christened the podcast here, so to speak, and are calling it Wirecard Eintüten Episode 1. The topic of this first episode is the court case that has been taking place in the Stadelheim prison for about a year and a half. And so that we have competence and expertise here, I naturally have a partner. Also so that it doesn't get boring, of course. And that's Jörg. Jörg is the expert when it comes to Wirecard. He has acquired an incredible amount of knowledge since 2003 and is constantly being asked by other journalists and people involved in the Wirecard scandal. So Jörg is practically here, sitting opposite me. Hello Jörg. Jörg: Hi, thanks for inviting me. Martin: Nice of you to take the time. Jörg: Yes, great. Martin: Yes, how do we start? I think there's a lot to talk about. The subject of court proceedings is also quite complex, as is your knowledge. I guess we can start around the middle of 2020 in June.

Jörg: Yes, well, I guess with the breakdown that happened. And then it actually happened relatively quickly, surprisingly quickly on the part of the public prosecutor's office. And I mean, it's never happened before in Germany that a DAX company has collapsed within a week. In this respect, although it was corona time, it was a topic that was the headline of the daily news and kept everyone busy. And above all, the failure of the authorities quickly became the focus of attention. And it went all the way up to Angela Merkel, so you have to think about it: Angela Merkel involved, Olaf Scholz involved, lots of lobbyists involved, the authorities, lots of criticism. So it really was a huge issue. Right, you have to mention the Wirecard committee of inquiry. 

Martin: Yes, exactly. It caused quite a stir throughout Europe and Germany in the run-up. 

Jörg: Exactly, the election was coming up. So you also have to look at the timing of it. And it was all the more astonishing, or for me it was very astonishing, that on July 22, I think it was, Anne Leiding from the public prosecutor's office stood up and basically said, hey, we've more or less cleared up the matter. We have a key witness, Mr. Oliver B. Bellenhaus. So Bello as a key witness and actually the matter is more or less clear. And they initially only investigated market manipulation and then massively expanded it and created the impression that the matter was completely clear. Which of course also had a massive effect on the subsequent reporting and also on the investigative committee. 

Martin: As I remember the press conference given by the spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office, the narrative, one must say from today's perspective, or the tenor of the prosecution at the time, was that the TPA deal had been almost completely fabricated and that a key witness had been identified, namely Stadtholder B. 

Jörg: From Dubai, yes. 

Martin: And I think he will certainly play a huge role in this episode, this podcast, I have the impression. 

Martin: It started with this press conference that the TPA deal was almost completely fabricated and because of this accusation by the public prosecutor's office, which was announced to the public, there were also some arrests, right? 

Jörg: Yes, Ley, von Erffa, Bellenhaus and Braun. Martin: Von Erffa is the former chief accountant. I think he was imprisoned for a year, I read. Is that correct? He was imprisoned for a year? Jörg: A whole year. A whole year in custody. 

Martin: And Dr. Markus Braun too, wasn't he? 

Jörg: Dr. Markus Braun was arrested and released after a day on five million bail. It went a bit strangely with this 24-hour detention story. I wanted to make one more point about this matter of suffering, because what struck me in retrospect is that the characterization of Markus Braun was already made clear in this press conference: absolutist ruler and the fact that he is the sole ruler can explain, so to speak, how this fraud came about in the first place, so these things, all these things that were then written up and down by all the media, they were actually already raised in this press conference. And interestingly, many of these statements were not repeated in Stadelheim. Martin: That's absolutely correct. I think I'll post the link to the YouTube video below the podcast so that people can watch the press conference again. That is absolutely key. That's why we started with it. So Dr. Markus Braun was in custody for 24 hours and got out again. But when did he become permanent, has he been in custody for years? When was the permanent detention ordered? Jörg: Well, I don't know the exact dates any more. I know that Markus Braun returned to Austria and he had to report regularly to the public prosecutor's office. That's interesting when it comes to the risk of absconding factor. Because as I said, he voluntarily reported to the public prosecutor's office for his appointment. And then we once said, Mr. Braun, you... I think he already knew, but I'm not entirely sure about that.

In any case, he was in Vienna, he could have stayed in Vienna, but he came back to Munich. So as I said, this point is very important to me with regard to the discussion about the risk of flight. Leiding first looked at her cell phone for a moment and wanted to start, oh, I'm looking at my cell phone right now. Then there was another interposed question, then a minute later she said again, oh, I'm looking at my cell phone right now. Very funny, look at that, it's very funny. But anyway, that's when she announced that the warrant for Braun's arrest had gone through. That was on July 22nd, when he was arrested. So I don't know who, apart from Ms. Zschäpe, was in custody for longer in Germany. 

Martin: No. 

Jörg: But he's already in the top league with his time now. 

Martin: So Dr. Rainer Füllmich there in Göttingen, he's only at eight months. Dr. Markus Braun is now at what, almost four years? 

Jörg: More than four. 

Martin: Four years plus. But like his aide Jan Marsalek, he didn't fly to, I don't know... Wherever he was....Doha. So he didn't do that. 

Jörg: Well, maybe somewhere in western Austria, who knows. 

Martin: So in any case, he was then arrested and has officially been in custody ever since, without a single day's interruption. 

Jörg: Exactly, exactly. He was in Gablingen. 

Martin: For anyone listening, Gablingen is a high-security prison near Augsburg, where there are three or four walls. But he was then also transferred to Stadelheim, because then, we're now jumping to the year 2022, so after the U Committee in Berlin had finished its work and had also published the official report, the court proceedings then began in December 2022. 

Jörg: Exactly, exactly. Perhaps interestingly, in March 2022 there was an unusually long press release from the public prosecutor's office, also from Ms. Leiding, about the indictment and it was really amazing, because the public prosecutor's office went on and on about everything they had done and how intensive and difficult the investigation was. In retrospect, the seemingly endless list of countries where legal assistance was sought was very exciting. I think there were 18 or 20 countries and what was very exciting, perhaps we'll get to that later, were the gaps, i.e. the countries that were not mentioned and that became very important relatively quickly. Which ones were there, for example? Can we take a quick dive into that? Antigua is not mentioned, Montenegro is not mentioned, Labuan, which is somewhere in Malaysia, is not mentioned and that is very surprising when you see later on how important Antigua is and then it is not on this list. I found that very surprising. 

Martin: I guess Mauritius certainly wasn't on the list either, and probably not Switzerland either?

Jörg: Yes, yes, yes. I think Switzerland was on it. There really were a lot of countries, but there were a few missing that, as I said, maybe we'll get to them. So it's a very astonishing list that reveals certain gaps. Yes, you have to differentiate a bit. I only really saw a lot of it in retrospect, because I had started a new job myself and that's exactly what happened. But what is also crucial is that Dierlamm had a quasi press spokesman or communications officer, Dirk Metz, who was somehow a communications expert and who published a number of articles, including one by Gabor Steingart, which actually hinted at Braun's defense strategy. However, this was immediately presented by some journalists as a victim narrative without being presented in terms of content.

Martin: So it was already in March, April, it was quite crazy. It was actually visible that certain journalists, most of them probably mass media journalists, were already firing away and countering what Dr. Braun's defence and the lawyer, the star lawyer Mr. Dierlamm, were suggesting. 

Jörg: Well, the interesting thing for me, who is actually very familiar with the topic, is that I accepted it that way. So this quasi refutation of the Braun defense theory was absolutely comprehensible to me, because that's what all the journalists wrote and because this March statement, March 2022, becomes very important again, because the public prosecutor's office didn't write a word about it in it. From this, I drew the logical conclusion that the public prosecutor's office examined this and did not consider it to be significant. And I believe that this is a very decisive point in the later course of events, that Braun's defense was not presented neutrally from the very beginning, i.e. its content was suppressed.

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, Season 1: First episode, The Start

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 10 - Final

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 9

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 8

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 7

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 6

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 5

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 4

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 3

Wirecard Sacked

The Court Proceeding - Season 1, Episode 2

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