The former COO of the fintech startup Wirecard, Jan Marsalek, who stole about two billion dollars from the company's accounts, is in Russia. Journalists from The Wall Street Journal came to these conclusions during their investigation, also hinting at Marsalek’s possible connections with Russian intelligence.
It is alleged that Marsalek led an active financial life throughout the three years after his disappearance. According to the publication, he launched several investment projects, the participants of which did not receive any profit, since the hundreds of millions of dollars allocated by them were simply stolen by Marsalek. In addition, the investigation indicates that the Czech helped with the transfer of currency, one way or another connected with the structures of the deceased ex-head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
In recent years, Marsalek, who allegedly received a Russian passport under a false name, has been expanding his business empire in Africa, regularly visiting his residence in Dubai (UAE). He could have maintained ties with the Middle East and the black continent from his time at Wirecard, when Marsalek, according to journalists, helped the GRU and the SVR pay for the services of informants and intelligence officers in these regions. Moreover, the former top manager himself collected information about the accounts of German secret service employees in Wirecard and transferred it to Moscow.
In addition, the WSJ writes that after 2020 Marsalek was directly related to the organization of the intelligence cell in the UK. It could include five Bulgarian citizens.
The Wirecard fraud was the largest in the history of German business. In 2020, the Munich prosecutor's office announced the start of an investigation into the disappearance of two billion dollars from the accounts of a fintech startup. According to some reports, the next day Marsalek flew to Minsk on a private jet. Former colleagues of Marsalek recalled in conversations with journalists that he often boasted of connections with the intelligence services, and also kept a statue of Russian President Vladimir Putin on his office desk.
