19 ms·

Fugitive Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek exposed as decade-long GRU spy

528 points by jcmp 3y ago

KingOfCoders 3y ago
Hidden as a orthodox priest! "Then came June 2020, when, in the midst of an audit, Wirecard could not locate €1.9 billion in assets it claimed were being held somewhere in the world" EY audited them for years without asking about the missing billions.
- piva00 3y ago
  > Hidden as a orthodox priest! A throwback to the ancient world to the Middle Ages, hiding spies among the clergy!
  - dralley 3y ago
    Don't have to go back that far - the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is "ex-"KGB
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      > the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is "ex-"KGB Seems related: Russia is more frequently arresting religious leaders (all sorts), typically on terrorism charges ref: https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/maksim-khalturin https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-v... ref: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/2/ukraine-court-puts-metropolitan-pavlo-under-house-arrest https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/2/ukraine-court-puts-m... ref: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/03/russia-jails-islamic-publisher-for-17-years-on-terrorism-charges-a80137 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/03/russia-jails-islam... ref: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/world/europe/russia-church-repression-siberia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/world/europe/russia-churc... ref: https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/medzhit-abdurakhmanov https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-v... 2000's sidebar: It killed me watching Russia overtly copy the US model of boogey-manning terrorism into an flexible excuse to expand State reach and power
      - dralley 3y ago
        er, copy? The first and second Chechen wars happened in the 1990s.
      - mandevil 3y ago
        In September 1999 a series of bombs tore apart four apartment buildings in three Russian cities, and the recently appointed (a month earlier) Prime Minister, a bright young former deputy mayor of St Petersburg named Vladimir Putin, whom no one had ever heard of and had many similarly positioned rivals, won a great deal of popularity for his handling of these "terrorist attacks" that killed 307 people, including re-invading Chechnya and starting the Second Chechen War. He then used that popularity to become essentially dictator for life. These bombings were blamed on Chechens- who hotly denied it. It has long been suspected- but not really proven- that the FSB was behind it, as a true False Flag operation to gin up support for invading Chechnya, done under the orders of former KGB/FSB agent Vladimir Putin who just happened to be the one to benefit most from the attacks. You can see the wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombing... to see more details on exactly what the evidence for this is, and the people who argue that there is just not enough evidence one way or another to assign responsibility. So, no, Russia was not "overtly copy the US model" if anything they were innovating it first and the US was copying.
        lazide 3y ago
        [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889)] Spanish American war? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident ] Gulf of Tonkin? The tail wagging the dog is as old as, well, government. Probably older. Nothing new under the sun, etc. etc.
  - ajuc 3y ago
    Russian Orthodox church today is openly run by russian state officials, military, police, fsb members, etc. They are also openly supporting invasion of Ukraine as a kind of "holy war". The russian word for "non-government organization" is "foreign agent".
    - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
      > The russian word for "non-government organization" is "foreign agent". Thats pretty accurate though.
      - ajuc 3y ago
        It's not, and westerners who think they agree don't actually agree, they are just edgy. It's hard to even explain what it would mean to internalize this belief system. Let me try. We're you ever on an amateur IT conference? Comicon? Some sports event? Would it ever occur to you to assume some government is secretly behind it? When the Jehova witnesses or scientologists knock on your door - which government is financing them to do it and why? After all people don't do things for free.
        brookst 3y ago
        It’s just the reductive pedantry that’s so popular on the internet. A CIA operative is the agent of a foreign government, therefore a foreign agent. A Doctors Without Borders medic is an agent of a foreign organization, therefore a foreign agent. Therefore CIA and DWB are essentially the same thing. Bonus points if you can find one case where a DWB volunteer also had ties to the CIA, which would totally expose the two orgs as being exactly the same in all ways at all times. For some reason people just can’t resist reductionism.
        fragmede 3y ago
        > For some reason people just can’t resist reductionism. Being a bit reductive there, eh? :)
- mellutussa 3y ago
  > €1.9 billion in assets it claimed were being held somewhere in the world I really hate it when I leave my billions somewhere in the world and can't remember where.
  - endymi0n 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - FabHK 3y ago
    There was a personal assistant who stole around GBP 4m from several of her bosses at Goldman Sachs. One of the bankers finally noticed when a 6-figure donation to Harvard bounced. One of other the victims later testified that his investment account felt "one or two million light". https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/secretary-who-had-a-aps4m-talent-for-stealing-from-her-superrich-bosses-56955.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/secretary-who-ha...
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      My friend once stated that "Financial security is when you don't know which day of the week your paycheck gets direct deposited". Imagine being so unfathomably wealthy you don't even know how much cash you should have control over from one day to the next. Actually don't, it's bad for your brain.
      - robocat 3y ago
        > unfathomably wealthy It's all just relative. I've mislaid thousands. That's years of income in many countries. You don't need to be that wealthy before a days wages for you is a months wages for someone poor in many countries. Indecently wealthy is relative: people look at their own incomes and often compare upwards but rarely seem to compare downwards.
    - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
      Don't you just hate it when you can't recall if you were supposed to have 1 or 2 million on your investment account?
- jgalt212 3y ago
  If you pay the Big 4 enough money, they will look the other way or not ask for supporting documentation. Just google accounting scandals and see just how many of these shops were audited by the Big 4.
  - toyg 3y ago
    Any tax authority worth their budget should require extra evidence from any Big-4 customer. By now it's clear they are less reliable than your average smalltown accountant. Unfortunately, there is typically a big revolving door between them and any tax institution. Why toil for decades in underpaid public roles, when you can step into the gilded world of consultancy and double or treble your salary? It's like the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wall Street, except in real life most civil servants take the corrupting deal (and I can't even blame them).
    - hef19898 3y ago
      The audits done by the Big 5 in this context have nothing to do with taxes so.
    - kortilla 3y ago
      Lol, if audits had to do with taxes and not defrauding investors, this would have made sense.
  - brookst 3y ago
    It really depends on the terms of the audit. Routine financial audits are not intended to be exhaustive forensic audits that assume every document might be forged as part of a massive fraud. Most audits are just “does the documentation support the reporting”.
  - cortesoft 3y ago
    Isn’t that just because most of the biggest companies are audited by the Big 4, and in order to be a big accounting scandal, you need to be a big company? I feel like this is pointing out something like, “More criminals drive Ford trucks than any other truck” which is true, but just because more people drive that brand than any other? Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
- hef19898 3y ago
  EY believed the documents shown to them. Sloppy for sure, and EY got their amount of flak for it. People litteraly went to the banks in Asia during the extraordinary audit, something that is not usually done during "normal" audits. And yes, I also hate when I misplace my billions. Especially since I have yet to relocate them...
  - omega3 3y ago
    > EY believed the documents shown to them. Sloppy for sure, and EY got their amount of flak for it. There are strict rules and guidelines around verifying an asset. The auditor isn't supposed to "believe the documents" - they need to form an independent opinion.^1 If the auditor is unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to verify the asset, they can issue a qualified opinion due to a scope limitation. ^1 https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/member/discover/cpd-articles/audit-assurance/specific-considerations.html https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/member/discover/cpd-article...
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Good nitpick. Thing is, the proof EY got from Wirecard was good enough to meet these thresholds, at least I never read or heard anything else. All that evidence was fabricated, of course. What EY did was ignoring all the warning signs they had: money laundering, making up business, fraud and all that. EY also wanted the proof the standards it seemingly met, that was the failure. But then those audits are not really meant to find organized fraud at a company to begin with.
      - omega3 3y ago
        > Thing is, the proof EY got from Wirecard was good enough to meet these thresholds It objectively wasn't. I've never heard of a case where the auditor doesn't independently verify the bank account balance with the bank itself. More reliable evidence reduces the need for additional corroborating evidence. In general the evidence obtained from the company itself wouldn't be considered reliable by itself. https://www.ft.com/content/db9fa3d7-11da-476e-beea-d5ed0ad137ed https://www.ft.com/content/db9fa3d7-11da-476e-beea-d5ed0ad13... This wasn't some hard to uncover marvel of accounting fraud using complex financial engineering.
- rchaud 3y ago
  EY offices in Singapore knew that their revenues were not traceable (Wirecard invented clients based in Asia). They hired a law firm to investigate, but the head office in Europe suppressed the findings because they wanted the contract.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Did this come up during the EY trials? Because this is the forat time I ever heard that.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Beijinger 3y ago
  No, they did ask. And got Bank statements. They even went to a subsidiary branch of the bank and confirmed that the money exits in Indonesia (or was it the Philippines?). The problem: This bank had no branch in Singapore (or wherever it was). He set up a fake branch with actors that showed EY computer statements - EY took pictures of the screens - with the balance. You can't make this up. EY screwed up, but they could not have reasonably assumed that someone sets up a fake bank branch.
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    Yes I know they did ask. As the responsible manager for IT (usually CTO - internal SOX was a different matter) I have been "asked" by EY (and KPMG) about IT setups and security several times for audits. And I could have told them whatever I like, the people were right out of university with no clue about the matter and in no position to ask the right questions except reading their checklist; I always had the impression they only knew half the words they were reading.
    - 19h 3y ago
      Did you remove Wirecard from your LinkedIn?
      - alsetmusic 3y ago
        > Did you remove Wirecard from your LinkedIn? [Not the person you replied to.] Did the person you replied to work for LinkedIn? What's the context for this question?
        19h 3y ago
        I was just curious and visited the LinkedIn profile that's linked to from the ctone.ws website (in KingOfCoders's profile) and was wondering why Wirecard was omitted.
        bitcharmer 3y ago
- Log_out_ 3y ago
  Well, Russian orthodox church was always cheka all the way from the top?
badcppdev 3y ago
Are there other news sites carrying this? The stories about the threats against the journalist Dan McCrum who was investigating Wirecard between 2014 and 2020 are mental. I've just checked and McCrum has shared this link as well on Twitter so I count that as a reason to trust it.
- jcmp 3y ago
  It was in cooperation with a lot of the main german news outlets like "Der Spiegel"[1] and "der Standard"[2] both are german tho ;) [1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/wirecard-skandal-wie-der-manager-jan-marsalek-zum-spion-wurde-a-5cb415ed-0029-4754-8bd5-f4120f4baf83 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/wirecard-skandal-... [2]https://www.derstandard.de/consent/tcf/story/3000000209638/manager-spion-priester-das-unheimliche-doppelleben-des-jan-marsalek https://www.derstandard.de/consent/tcf/story/3000000209638/m...
  - badcppdev 3y ago
    Thank you. Der Spiegel had a paywall as well which slowed me down
    - rallyforthesun 3y ago
      https://archive.is/xZq5p https://archive.is/xZq5p
  - FinnKuhn 3y ago
    I know I am nitpicking, but "Der Standard" is Austrian.
- hef19898 3y ago
  And there I was, believing Marsalek was just another useful idiot, and not a full blown GRU operative. I ahve to say, I am impressed a little bit. Just puzzled about the whole goal of this operation. And bit worried the Wirecard management standing trial right now, can use this to get away with the fraud they actively engaged in.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
[flagged]
jajko 3y ago
[flagged]
- NicoJuicy 3y ago
  Snowden was a huge propaganda asset for Russia. He wouldn't release suspicious activity from Russia, but tried to blame the west in everything. Ps. Look at the raw numbers + eg. GDP). Russia can't start a new cold war, the original cold war was one between equals. Russia is only big in km2
  - badcppdev 3y ago
    > He wouldn't release suspicious activity from Russia, but tried to blame the west in everything. Are you confusing Snowden and Assange?
    - NicoJuicy 3y ago
      Yes. You're right Russia had benefits with both. They worked together ( Snowden and Assange). But Snowden wasn't a Russian puppet like Assange.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    Snowden didn't really have anything to release on Russia. All his stuff was about the US and other Five Eyes nations. I think it was Assange that was basically a Russian stooge.
    - NicoJuicy 3y ago
      Yeah, you're right.
- alexejb 3y ago
  South america took fugitive nazis. The US didn't really denacify Western Germany and let a lot of the old cadre become leading actors in the post war politics and military of W-Germany. The list could go on and on. All animals are equal but some are more equal.
npalli 3y ago
The Netflix documentary [1] on the Wirecard scandal [2] is great. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21836620/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21836620/ [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal
- OskarS 3y ago
  The book it's based on, Money Men by Dan McCrum, is also a spectacular read.
  - npalli 3y ago
    Indeed. Dan McCrum is prominently figured in the documentary as well.
  - this_user 3y ago
    McCrum had already pointed out that Marsalek was at least looking for connections intelligence services, had confirmed connections to at least some former intelligence operatives, and that there were a lot of pieces of evidence that pointed to the strong possibility of connection to Russia. He just didn't find definitive proof, but that was also not the primary focus of his book.
    - rchaud 3y ago
      Yes the book mentions towards the end that Marsalek's location was unknown, but possibly in Russia or Belarus where Interpol would not be able to do much.
  - philshem 3y ago
    Another author but a fascinating New Yorker article on the same subject https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/how-the-biggest-fraud-in-german-history-unravelled https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/how-the-bigges...
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Highly recommended as well from my side!
cs702 3y ago
I still cannot believe the last photo in the article, showing him in his current disguise as an orthodox priest.
- locallost 3y ago
  It's not him, but the man whose identity he apparently took. Says so in the image caption.
jonpo 3y ago
Not a surprise but useful to have it confirmed
alxjsn 3y ago
[flagged]
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Yup, that got me as well.
- panja 3y ago
  I did as well
go13 3y ago
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SXX 3y ago
It's not the first story like this and not the last. Right now there is still NASDAQ traded "Freedom Holding Corp" (FRHC) originated from Kazahstan with primary business of fueling sanctioned Russian money and doing other shady business in ex-USSR. Everyone knows they mass open accounts for Russia residents remotely and no one cares. It's not like there are no other banks doing the same, but none of them are owned by US-based entity traded on NASDAQ. SEC certainly wont care until it implode on thousands of retail investors. Going after crypto is far more important. And there are more financial institutions that have banking licenses around the globe (including US, EU and UK) with primary source of income from money laundering and again no one cares until they grow too big or scam all their customers and investors.
- _the_inflator 3y ago
  You have a point. On the other hand, some actions can serve as a sort of surveillance. Where exactly goes the money? It is like a honeypot or observing your suspects. Shutting down would undoubtedly help, on the other side, understanding systems and beneficiaries needs to be handled in a different manner.
  - SXX 3y ago
    That's all great until one day said banking group land on SDN sanctions list losing everything that retail investors who been dumb enough put into it. There are plenty of Turkish and UAE banks that do the same money laundering, but they are not traded on NASDAQ. UPD: In any case my point is not talking about this situation specifically, but just pointing out US has it's own Wirecard and likely are there far more than one example. This is just one I know.
- atlasunshrugged 3y ago
  Any idea as to why they haven't been investigated and/or de-listed? Is it really just that no one cares? That seems insane to me but I don't know much about the financial services space
  - SXX 3y ago
morbicer 3y ago
Not a surprise considering what Citizen Lab found out. https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/79/ https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/79/
lifeisstillgood 3y ago
The UK has just concluded its investigation into “steakknife” - an IRA killer who was also working for British army and killed people on both sides seemingly with impunity. I am guessing there is a mental hurdle in committing larger and larger crimes, but having “permission” from a government spy agency probably makes such things easier. It’s ok to commit this crime - I have permission so it’s not really a crime. The point is, no-one sees themselves as the bad guy.
PedroBatista 3y ago
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- dindobre 3y ago
  Indeed it doesn't. Countless other interesting facts that relate Germany and Russia, politicians, banks, "journalists", etc. We do have to remember that half of it was under USSR influence, to be candid. In my opinion, the war in Ukraine exposed an enormous European mess when it comes to scrutiny and the difference between perceived corruption and reality.
- vasac 3y ago
  It made sense for both Germany and Russia, but it didn't make sense for somebody else. Now, who that may be is left as an exercise for the reader.
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  > This type of stuff also might explain one of the reasons why German governments and big conglomerates seemingly have a mental block when dealing with Putin's Russia. The guy is Austrian. > The Nord Stream might be the most "famous" one. How can a society so conservative and risk averse to the point of ridiculousness allow their whole country to be almost exclusively dependent of Russia? It doesn't make any sense. Nord Stream brought in 55% of natural gas managed in Germany. 50% of natural gas managed in Germany was for export. So there's no "almost exclusive" dependency, use of russian gas wasn't a German peculiarity, and Germany could have thrown the rest of Europe under the bus to quickly get rid of any association with russian gas at a moment's notice (by restricting exports to compensate for the loss.) For the record, Germany didn't do that. Germany took cheap natural gas, Europe took cheap natural gas, and when the source for cheap natural gas turned out to be a problem, gears were shifted to get away from that. At a cost, certainly, but probably still cheaper than relying only on more expensive gas sources for 50 years. With the added benefit of calming down the cold war (and the attempt to repeat that performance later-on, which in hindsight was unsuccessful)
  - dralley 3y ago
    Maybe that's a fine rationale for Nordstream 1, but it's a terrible rationale for Nordstream 2. There were repeated votes strongly in favor (like, 8-to-1 ratio) of halting the project in European Parliament not to mention strong and vocal opposition from the US, Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics.
tagyro 3y ago
Next up, Solaris Bank and Vivid Money, that is, if BaFin wakes up.
- geff82 3y ago
  Solaris Bank is Deutsche Bank.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Which could be used as another reason to look into them, right?
  - tagyro 3y ago
    what?! no, they are a german bank (which translates to "deutsche bank" in german) but there is no connection (afaik, my infos are 2+ years old now) between Solaris and Deutsche Bank AG.
  - geff82 3y ago
    My bad. My comment was wrong indeed. I confused Solaris Bank with norisbank. Norisbank is Deutsche Bank, Solaris Bank is NOT. You were right of course.
- sveme 3y ago
  Why solaris bank? A lot if startups are relying on them, what‘s wrong with them? Though TradeRepublic moved away from them, makes you wonder.
  - tagyro 3y ago
    Last I've heard BaFin actually appointed a special investigator [0] to Solaris [0]: https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/DE/Massnahmen/60b_KWG_84_WpIG_und_57_GwG/meldung_2023_01_26_Solaris_SE.html https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/DE/Massn...
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > Though TradeRepublic moved away from them, makes you wonder. TR got its own full-bank license a few months ago [1], it makes sense for them to consolidate stuff in-house instead of paying third parties for their services. That is useful as a startup with a few thousand customers, as the requirements of actually building a bank tech stack are quite massive, but TR has >4M customers now and makes a profit [2]. [1] https://www.capital.de/geld-versicherungen/trade-republic-erhaelt-banklizenz---was-das-fuer-kunden-bedeutet-34262702.html https://www.capital.de/geld-versicherungen/trade-republic-er... [2] https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/fintech/neobroker-trade-republic-ist-erstmals-profitabel-und-nennt-kundenzahlen/ https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/fintech/neobrok...
dosinga 3y ago
> Then as now, the internet’s truly big business came from revenues connected to gambling and pornography This is an idea you hear quite often, but seems very unlikely to be actually true. Internet's truly big businesses are the truly big businesses of the big tech companies
- dewey 3y ago
  One example: 0.7% of the countries GDP for the Philippines is related to their gambling infrastructure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Offshore_Gaming_Operator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Offshore_Gaming_O...
- whatamidoingyo 3y ago
  I'd agree. Big tech is used all day, every day. People aren't browsing porn sites while they're at work (at least, most aren't). However, I can't imagine how many people are browsing at night.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    Being at work doesn't preempt anybody from using their phone. A lot of people watch porn without necessarily needing to excuse themselves.
  - Mistletoe 3y ago
    Using Big Tech and paying money are two different things. A US user is worth about $13 each quarter to Facebook. A customer on a cam site will pay more than that for a minute private show probably. One porn DVD, etc.
    - whatamidoingyo 3y ago
      That's true. Honestly, when I was thinking about the topic, I didn't consider cam sites, as that's not something I'm too familiar with myself... I assumed most users (or useds, as Stallman would say), were just browsing the billions of free material.
  - 3y ago
sampa 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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trollbridge 3y ago
Meanwhile: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39560440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39560440 Entities like PayPal and Stripe are complaining they want less EU banking regulation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- generationP 3y ago
  If German intel serves personal data to a known fugitive from justice working with the GRU, then EU regulation is a lost cause. If anything, I want them to know as little as possible.
home-made 3y ago
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home-made 3y ago
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I_am_tiberius 3y ago
For people following the Wirecard story this isn't new.
- generationP 3y ago
  That Marsalek works for Russian intel isn't new. Many of the details are.
tivert 3y ago
> The CEO of the company was Markus Braun, a former KPMG consultant from a middle-class family in Vienna. Braun modeled his appearance on Steve Jobs, always wearing a black turtleneck and wire-frame eyeglasses Didn't Elizabeth Holmes do that too? Never trust people who consciously dress like Steve Jobs on days other than Halloween.
- _visgean 3y ago
  I wear glasses and i wear turtleneck in the winter. I am bit trying to emulate Jobs, I just dont want my throat to be exposed to wind.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > I wear glasses and i wear turtleneck in the winter. I am bit trying to emulate Jobs, I just dont want my throat to be exposed to wind. Just don't wear a black one and you're fine.
    - _visgean 3y ago
      i wear a black one. Really nice one from charity shop for 7 pounds.. but I dont mind the occasional "steve jobs" snark
- kiddico 3y ago
  Not unlike the toothbrush mustache, black turtlenecks have been ruined for everyone.
  - 9dev 3y ago
    Shame, that is. Ever found yourself in front of the mirror thinking, "trim a little here, a little there -- whoops, thaaat's too much"? Ruined that for all of us, the small man.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
photochemsyn 3y ago
Interesting story - sounds like Wirecard may have been a Russian version of the BCCI. For comparison: https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm > "The unofficial story of BCCI's links to U.S. intelligence is complicated by the inability of investigators to determine whether private persons affiliated with U.S. intelligence were undertaking actions such as selling U.S. arms to a foreign government outside ordinary channels on their own behalf, or ostensibly under sanction of a U.S. government agency, policy, or operation."
Log_out_ 3y ago
German (sp/h)ygh society, it's almost like any longterm spywar breeds a mafia, they are loyal first to themselves and their thiefdoms everywhere.
dogman144 3y ago
Everytime crypto gets harangued as a money laundering cesspool, I think of HSBC’s highest performing branch in Sinaloa and Germany’s fintech giant payment processor run by a GRU spy. As in two money laundering behemoths right out in the regulated open. Give me a break.
- dogman144 3y ago
  lol for those downvoting, here are the facts: - HSBC was fined about $2.5b all in all by US govt in 2010’s (one of largest ever) for laundering $900m for cartels over multiple years. The Sinaloa branch (not NYC, Zurich, Greenwich, London… but Sinaloa) was their highest performing branch for a long stretch - Why exactly would a German unicorn payment processors’ COO be a longterm agent… GRU’s infiltration of German finance and energy industry for laundering and energy markets access is an open secret.
- sgt101 3y ago
  other bad things do not make a bad thing ok
  - southernplaces7 3y ago
    And what's the innately "bad" thing about crypto?
    - sgt101 3y ago
      I think that the separation of the power to issue a currency from the state is profoundly dangerous, undermines the source of legitimacy of our society, and likely to destroy any possibility of a kind and fulfilling world for billions of people. The current form of money that we use relies on the structure and status of the states that issue it, and the relationships that they have with one another. This is not positive in every way, for example the military dominance of the United States underpins the value of the dollar internationally. However, some measure of democratic accountability additional to brute force and pure market economics has allowed some diversion of wealth to create some measure of social justice. I think there is no sign at all that crypto will provide this and instead if it was allowed to run wild the world would be ruled by people like Elon Musk with no restraint. Apart from that it's fine!
calibas 3y ago
This is what actual reporting looks like. Look at most news stories these days. There's some kind of conflict, two parties don't agree on something, and they report both "sides" of the story. Because the writers don't know what really occurred, it's common that a news story will give equal weight to lies and truth (or semi-truth and semi-truth). In the insanity of normal society, this is actually promoted as a good thing. News stations pat themselves on the back for being "fair and balanced", and use it as proof of being "unbiased". It's the opposite of unbiased, when there's no bias there are no "sides". You can't take both sides in a conflict, each "side" being a heavily biased opinion in itself, and combine them together to create a lack of bias. That's not how it works, two conflicting partial truths don't equal a whole truth, two conflicting partial truths just create cognitive dissonance (FUD). Now look at this news story, it's quite different from what I described above. It's proper investigative journalism where the goal is cutting through opinions and second-hand information to find the actual truth. It's a major accomplishment and something to be applauded. In my heavily-biased opinion, it's the job of a free press to seek and report the truth, to create new stories like this one, not to report "both sides". And to illustrate when I'm saying, look at what happens to be the #1 story on my Google News at this moment: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/middleeast/gaza-food-truck-deaths-israel-wwk-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/middleeast/gaza-food-truck-de... CNN doesn't know exactly what happened, there's conflicting stories, and all we know for sure is that a bunch of hungry Palestinians were just killed while trying to get food. Here's what CNN found: According to Palestine it's Israel's fault. According to Israel it's Palestine's fault. Yes, clear as mud. It's the perfect kind of reporting for adding to the controversy and acting like there's no clear right & wrong, or viable solutions to the conflict. It's how I would do things if I wanted to extend the war as long as possible. However, I'm biased toward peace and preservation of life, so it's quite clear to me what's causing food riots and subsequent massacres.
- red_admiral 3y ago
  When something newsworthy happens, like many civilian deaths around a food truck, people reading the news want two things: they want the truth, and they want it now. I agree with you that good journalism seeks the truth first of all - but that takes time and if everyone else is talking about that truck today, your news outlet has to feature that story too somehow. Maybe we'll have a proper investigative report on that truck in a week, or a month. I remember that earlier in the war, when some kind of rocket struck a hospital in Gaza, Israel and Hamas also blamed each other - then President Biden said as far as his intelligence goes, it was Hamas and I think that's the consensus now? We might never know for sure, but in the immediate aftermath of the hit the options for a media outlet were basically "we don't know" or "it was definitely the side we don't like". The truthful answer until someone's done the investigation is the former, but that gets you the kind of article on CNN that you're pointing out.
DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
delusions of grandeur strongly remind me of Paul LeRoux https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/ https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/ ... also Kim Dotcom who I met personally before going on a run to Asia. He too had cardboard cutouts of himself as a cartoon character all over his Munich office of DataProtect. Funny that Kim Schmitz managed to settle in NZ and not Russia. He is an outlier, probably lacked the RU connection back then.
- crotchfire 3y ago
  The book _Kingpin_ about LeRoux is a great read! Fun and geeky. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9319468-kingpin https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9319468-kingpin Especially liked the part where he is asked "so why do you keep your piles of cash in Pelican cases"? "Because they float."
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
epistasis 3y ago
With Schulz's truly strange behavior in stalling support for Ukraine, and involvement in the Wirecard and cum-ex scandals, I truly wonder if there might be some kompromat hanging over Scholz's head around this.
- pelasaco 3y ago
  That's not new (in German) https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-verantwortung/wirecard-wird-olaf-scholz-von-wladimir-putin-erpresst-li.2174117 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-verantwortung/wir...
- Vuizur 3y ago
  Scholz does not stall support for Ukraine, Germany has given about 10 times as much military aid as France to Ukraine: https://www.politico.eu/article/military-aid-ukraine-france-way-behind-germany/ https://www.politico.eu/article/military-aid-ukraine-france-... Also compared to the US, Germany has given about 60 billion total aid (including the EU share + refugee cost) if I calculate it correctly, while the US has given 75 billion. So it gives much more per GDP.
- usrusr 3y ago
  There have been claims that in Putin's Dresden days, he happened to be assigned as the personal shadow of Scholz when young Olaf visited eastern Germany as a representative of the SPD youth organization. That would imply that Putin had been personally working on a file on him more than thirty years before Scholz became chancellor. This would certainly add some weight to any speculations about Putin having some form of leverage over Scholz. Being compromised does not eventually wear off over time, it compounds with every successful use. https://twitter.com/Jay_Bibo_Mario/status/1721667010092831033 https://twitter.com/Jay_Bibo_Mario/status/172166701009283103... I don't know if that assignment has been confirmed by any other source, but we do know that the visits have happened. They are even documented in radio archives. According to present day public broadcasting journalists, those actually happen to be the oldest known public recordings of Scholz.
3pm 3y ago
Is there a word that describes a very loosely organized but extremely powerful entity, that is kind of a nation state but also kind of a mafia and also kind of a business? Can it just be summarized as Putin's regime? But then it will function without him, maybe even more effectively. And its only ideology is the hate toward Western values (and love of the Western toys). What you call it?
- dh2022 3y ago
  I can’t wait to see what happens in Russia post-Putin. I mean, the guy is 71 years old. Maybe he will hang on for another 10-15 years. I can’t wait to see what happens then. As far as I can tell none of his biological offspring is being pushed as next leader.
  - 3pm 3y ago
    How much does he matter you think? After reading the article, did you get the impression that all the colorful characters will suddenly change their ways after Putin dies? It seems the whole thing is very very loosely organized. More Camorra than Cosa Nostra. They kinda off like reverse James Bonds, but not exactly.
    - dh2022 3y ago
      Well, a power struggle would be quite the thing to watch. At least for me. Kinda like what happened when Stalin died. (My personal forecast excludes return to democracy; it includes something similar to what happened after Stalin died).
      - 3pm 3y ago
        Yes, I think the chance to soft-land USSR into a democracy was missed by the West in the 90s. I don't see how the brainwashed population and their globe trotting elite will change their views now. It did not have to be this way.
        3y ago
mseepgood 3y ago
Why is Germany always so naive when it comes to Russian espionage and infiltration?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Krasnol 3y ago
  They are not in the conflict flow anymore. It's been trained out of their system for quite some time. It leads to some naive assumptions about how the world works. Even the events around the current conflict seem not to have shaken the society, from what I witness. The Green parties wishes on the topic of heat pumps or people coming to their country whose skin color is not white have more revolutionary potential than Russians right around the corner or people blowing up their gas pipelines. They are too busy with themselves and stuff like that is just embarrassing. It only serves as filling material for your everyday complaining orgy every single morning at work. Stuff a healthy German citizen leaves behind them at Feierabend.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > The Green parties wishes on the topic of heat pumps ... which are the most efficient way to wean us off of Russian gas. The Greens have pushed for years now to get rid of fossil fuel dependencies, turns out they did have a point all those decades.
    - lobocinza 3y ago
      AFAIK they killed nuclear and pushed towards natural gas (from Russia) at the time.
      - Krasnol 3y ago
        They never "pushed towards natural gas" and nuclear was killed by the Merkel Government while also stopping all renewable expansion for 16 years. Nuclear has been replaced many years ago by renewables in Germany. Stop spreading Michael Shillenbergers propaganda. Germany doesn't need nuclear the same way they don't need Russian gas anymore. You should all cheer for the Greens and for their foresight towards the end of the 90s when they pushed for renewables. Germany would still be struggling without them and Putin's gas if it hadn't been for their push for renewables.
thriftwy 3y ago
What was in it for Russia? The missing 1.9 billions would be an interesting asset for e.g. NK secret services, but for Russia it's a drop in a bucket.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  > The anti-revolutionary activities were being orchestrated by the FSB’s Fifth Service, the Russian organization’s foreign intelligence arm. One can only wonder what SBU was doing in the meantime...
- intuitionist 3y ago
  The money was not stolen; it never existed in the first place. The fraud at Wirecard started before Marsalek seems to have been recruited as a Russian asset; the GRU probably didn’t even know it was happening until fairly late in the game. As frauds tend to do, it snowballed, until you’re setting up a Potemkin bank branch in the Philippines to get your auditor off your back about the couple billion Euros in cash you claim to have. Still, I can think of a few reasons why an intelligence service might want to be connected to the wealthy COO of a company that processes payments for porn websites and offshore casinos…
- 3pm 3y ago
  There is no single 'Russia' and certainly not one entity _got_ the whole 1.9 billion. It looks like a fairly loosely coupled ecosystem of shady actors. They are privateers in a war. Not unlike Francis Drake. The war that everyone in Russia knows they're in.
  - intuitionist 3y ago
    No entity “got the whole 1.9 billion” because it was fictitious. The nature of the Wirecard fraud was (at least mostly) not that real profits were being siphoned off to nefarious entities, it’s that they were faking the profits.
- dralley 3y ago
  https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/hes-wanted-for-wirecards-missing-2-billion-hes-now-suspected-of-being-a-russian-spy-61d79ee2 https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/hes-wanted-for-wirecards-mi... "British prosecutors say that from 2020 to 2023, Marsalek ran a ring of five U.K. based Bulgarians who are alleged to have spied for Russia, directing them to gather information on people with the aim of helping the Kremlin abduct them. Officials say Marsalek was used by Russian intelligence services as a middleman to put distance between them and the spy network as it targeted individuals across Europe." ... "While running Wirecard, Marsalek helped the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and the SVR, its main overseas spying organization, pay intelligence officers and informants and funnel money into conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa, according to the officials. At the same time, these Western officials suspect Marsalek was gathering information on other customers of Munich-based Wirecard, most notably Germany’s main BND intelligence agency and the Federal Criminal Office, the country’s equivalent of the FBI, and handing it over to Moscow." ... "Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, as well as the country’s equivalent of the FBI, the BKA, told parliament during a public inquiry that ran from September 2020 to June 2021 that they had used Wirecard credit cards and bank accounts for their agents abroad as well as for paying informants at home and abroad. Senior German intelligence officials confirmed this to The Wall Street Journal. " ... "Marsalek ordered Wirecard Bank employees to breach data-protection and other rules to compile data about clients, according to testimony by former executives to German prosecutors. Several intelligence officials said it could have provided information about intelligence agents’ work. Wirecard’s former chief product officer, Susane Steidl, said Marsalek had overruled objections to collecting customer data and told her in 2019 he needed the data for the BND—something the agency categorically denies."
generationP 3y ago
Interestingly, the article completely avoids mentioning the familial trail: > Marsalek's grandfather, [Hans Maršálek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Mar%C5%A1%C3%A1lek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Mar%C5%A1%C3%A1lek), was a member of the Austrian resistance and later a suspected spy for the Soviet Union. And following the link to Hans Maršálek's page: > He was long suspected of being a Soviet asset. Recently uncovered documents indicate that are grounds to believe he was responsible for helping the Soviets kidnap at least four people and illegally render them to Moscow for torture and interrogation. While I am not surprised that a socialist persecuted under the Nazis would join Soviet efforts, this is some useful backstory in understanding why Marsalek the younger apparently had no reserves in collaborating with the KGB.
danielodievich 3y ago
Reading this reporting (Christo Grozev == quality always) reminds me of the experience reading of The Sword and the Shield by Christopher, MI5 historian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive) and just shaking my head at the complex web of money, ideas, and corruption spun and counterspun by various spy agencies. The Archive blew up stuff dating back to tsarist Russia, and exposed some brilliant operation, and tons more pedestrian money-grabbing. These days with OSINT the exposure of it no longer relies on someone sneaking out paper in huge milk jugs and suitcases like Mitrokhin did. And as a russian who came to states as a refugee it also boils my blood to see how much my former homeland is stirring the pots and slinging sh*t around the world and how many people can be bought. It is all going to end in a huge explosion 1917 style and a disaster for so many.
trhway 3y ago
>By this point, Wirecard’s client list included Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, giving Marsalek — and the Russian intelligence services — access to sensitive data about German law enforcement’s slate of confidential informants. that is a breach on a Hanssen level
wly_cdgr 3y ago
It's all so cliche and mundane and sordid and DULL
petterkinslove 3y ago
[dead]

528 points by jcmp 3y ago

Hidden as a orthodox priest! "Then came June 2020, when, in the midst of an audit, Wirecard could not locate €1.9 billion in assets it claimed were being held somewhere in the world" EY audited them for years without asking about the missing billions.

piva00 3y ago
> Hidden as a orthodox priest! A throwback to the ancient world to the Middle Ages, hiding spies among the clergy!
- dralley 3y ago
  Don't have to go back that far - the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is "ex-"KGB
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    > the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is "ex-"KGB Seems related: Russia is more frequently arresting religious leaders (all sorts), typically on terrorism charges ref: https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/maksim-khalturin https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-v... ref: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/2/ukraine-court-puts-metropolitan-pavlo-under-house-arrest https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/2/ukraine-court-puts-m... ref: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/03/russia-jails-islamic-publisher-for-17-years-on-terrorism-charges-a80137 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/03/russia-jails-islam... ref: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/world/europe/russia-church-repression-siberia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/world/europe/russia-churc... ref: https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-victims-database/medzhit-abdurakhmanov https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-conscience/forb-v... 2000's sidebar: It killed me watching Russia overtly copy the US model of boogey-manning terrorism into an flexible excuse to expand State reach and power
    - dralley 3y ago
      er, copy? The first and second Chechen wars happened in the 1990s.
    - mandevil 3y ago
      In September 1999 a series of bombs tore apart four apartment buildings in three Russian cities, and the recently appointed (a month earlier) Prime Minister, a bright young former deputy mayor of St Petersburg named Vladimir Putin, whom no one had ever heard of and had many similarly positioned rivals, won a great deal of popularity for his handling of these "terrorist attacks" that killed 307 people, including re-invading Chechnya and starting the Second Chechen War. He then used that popularity to become essentially dictator for life. These bombings were blamed on Chechens- who hotly denied it. It has long been suspected- but not really proven- that the FSB was behind it, as a true False Flag operation to gin up support for invading Chechnya, done under the orders of former KGB/FSB agent Vladimir Putin who just happened to be the one to benefit most from the attacks. You can see the wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombing... to see more details on exactly what the evidence for this is, and the people who argue that there is just not enough evidence one way or another to assign responsibility. So, no, Russia was not "overtly copy the US model" if anything they were innovating it first and the US was copying.
      - lazide 3y ago
        [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889)] Spanish American war? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident ] Gulf of Tonkin? The tail wagging the dog is as old as, well, government. Probably older. Nothing new under the sun, etc. etc.
- ajuc 3y ago
  Russian Orthodox church today is openly run by russian state officials, military, police, fsb members, etc. They are also openly supporting invasion of Ukraine as a kind of "holy war". The russian word for "non-government organization" is "foreign agent".
  - MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
    > The russian word for "non-government organization" is "foreign agent". Thats pretty accurate though.
    - ajuc 3y ago
      It's not, and westerners who think they agree don't actually agree, they are just edgy. It's hard to even explain what it would mean to internalize this belief system. Let me try. We're you ever on an amateur IT conference? Comicon? Some sports event? Would it ever occur to you to assume some government is secretly behind it? When the Jehova witnesses or scientologists knock on your door - which government is financing them to do it and why? After all people don't do things for free.
      - brookst 3y ago
        It’s just the reductive pedantry that’s so popular on the internet. A CIA operative is the agent of a foreign government, therefore a foreign agent. A Doctors Without Borders medic is an agent of a foreign organization, therefore a foreign agent. Therefore CIA and DWB are essentially the same thing. Bonus points if you can find one case where a DWB volunteer also had ties to the CIA, which would totally expose the two orgs as being exactly the same in all ways at all times. For some reason people just can’t resist reductionism.
        fragmede 3y ago
        > For some reason people just can’t resist reductionism. Being a bit reductive there, eh? :)
mellutussa 3y ago
> €1.9 billion in assets it claimed were being held somewhere in the world I really hate it when I leave my billions somewhere in the world and can't remember where.
- endymi0n 3y ago
  [flagged]
- FabHK 3y ago
  There was a personal assistant who stole around GBP 4m from several of her bosses at Goldman Sachs. One of the bankers finally noticed when a 6-figure donation to Harvard bounced. One of other the victims later testified that his investment account felt "one or two million light". https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/secretary-who-had-a-aps4m-talent-for-stealing-from-her-superrich-bosses-56955.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/secretary-who-ha...
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    My friend once stated that "Financial security is when you don't know which day of the week your paycheck gets direct deposited". Imagine being so unfathomably wealthy you don't even know how much cash you should have control over from one day to the next. Actually don't, it's bad for your brain.
    - robocat 3y ago
      > unfathomably wealthy It's all just relative. I've mislaid thousands. That's years of income in many countries. You don't need to be that wealthy before a days wages for you is a months wages for someone poor in many countries. Indecently wealthy is relative: people look at their own incomes and often compare upwards but rarely seem to compare downwards.
  - baobabKoodaa 3y ago
    Don't you just hate it when you can't recall if you were supposed to have 1 or 2 million on your investment account?
jgalt212 3y ago
If you pay the Big 4 enough money, they will look the other way or not ask for supporting documentation. Just google accounting scandals and see just how many of these shops were audited by the Big 4.
- toyg 3y ago
  Any tax authority worth their budget should require extra evidence from any Big-4 customer. By now it's clear they are less reliable than your average smalltown accountant. Unfortunately, there is typically a big revolving door between them and any tax institution. Why toil for decades in underpaid public roles, when you can step into the gilded world of consultancy and double or treble your salary? It's like the yacht scene in The Wolf of Wall Street, except in real life most civil servants take the corrupting deal (and I can't even blame them).
  - hef19898 3y ago
    The audits done by the Big 5 in this context have nothing to do with taxes so.
  - kortilla 3y ago
    Lol, if audits had to do with taxes and not defrauding investors, this would have made sense.
- brookst 3y ago
  It really depends on the terms of the audit. Routine financial audits are not intended to be exhaustive forensic audits that assume every document might be forged as part of a massive fraud. Most audits are just “does the documentation support the reporting”.
- cortesoft 3y ago
  Isn’t that just because most of the biggest companies are audited by the Big 4, and in order to be a big accounting scandal, you need to be a big company? I feel like this is pointing out something like, “More criminals drive Ford trucks than any other truck” which is true, but just because more people drive that brand than any other? Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
hef19898 3y ago
EY believed the documents shown to them. Sloppy for sure, and EY got their amount of flak for it. People litteraly went to the banks in Asia during the extraordinary audit, something that is not usually done during "normal" audits. And yes, I also hate when I misplace my billions. Especially since I have yet to relocate them...
- omega3 3y ago
  > EY believed the documents shown to them. Sloppy for sure, and EY got their amount of flak for it. There are strict rules and guidelines around verifying an asset. The auditor isn't supposed to "believe the documents" - they need to form an independent opinion.^1 If the auditor is unable to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to verify the asset, they can issue a qualified opinion due to a scope limitation. ^1 https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/member/discover/cpd-articles/audit-assurance/specific-considerations.html https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/member/discover/cpd-article...
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Good nitpick. Thing is, the proof EY got from Wirecard was good enough to meet these thresholds, at least I never read or heard anything else. All that evidence was fabricated, of course. What EY did was ignoring all the warning signs they had: money laundering, making up business, fraud and all that. EY also wanted the proof the standards it seemingly met, that was the failure. But then those audits are not really meant to find organized fraud at a company to begin with.
    - omega3 3y ago
      > Thing is, the proof EY got from Wirecard was good enough to meet these thresholds It objectively wasn't. I've never heard of a case where the auditor doesn't independently verify the bank account balance with the bank itself. More reliable evidence reduces the need for additional corroborating evidence. In general the evidence obtained from the company itself wouldn't be considered reliable by itself. https://www.ft.com/content/db9fa3d7-11da-476e-beea-d5ed0ad137ed https://www.ft.com/content/db9fa3d7-11da-476e-beea-d5ed0ad13... This wasn't some hard to uncover marvel of accounting fraud using complex financial engineering.
rchaud 3y ago
EY offices in Singapore knew that their revenues were not traceable (Wirecard invented clients based in Asia). They hired a law firm to investigate, but the head office in Europe suppressed the findings because they wanted the contract.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Did this come up during the EY trials? Because this is the forat time I ever heard that.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Beijinger 3y ago
No, they did ask. And got Bank statements. They even went to a subsidiary branch of the bank and confirmed that the money exits in Indonesia (or was it the Philippines?). The problem: This bank had no branch in Singapore (or wherever it was). He set up a fake branch with actors that showed EY computer statements - EY took pictures of the screens - with the balance. You can't make this up. EY screwed up, but they could not have reasonably assumed that someone sets up a fake bank branch.
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  Yes I know they did ask. As the responsible manager for IT (usually CTO - internal SOX was a different matter) I have been "asked" by EY (and KPMG) about IT setups and security several times for audits. And I could have told them whatever I like, the people were right out of university with no clue about the matter and in no position to ask the right questions except reading their checklist; I always had the impression they only knew half the words they were reading.
  - 19h 3y ago
    Did you remove Wirecard from your LinkedIn?
    - alsetmusic 3y ago
      > Did you remove Wirecard from your LinkedIn? [Not the person you replied to.] Did the person you replied to work for LinkedIn? What's the context for this question?
      - 19h 3y ago
        I was just curious and visited the LinkedIn profile that's linked to from the ctone.ws website (in KingOfCoders's profile) and was wondering why Wirecard was omitted.
        bitcharmer 3y ago
Log_out_ 3y ago
Well, Russian orthodox church was always cheka all the way from the top?

badcppdev 3y ago

Are there other news sites carrying this? The stories about the threats against the journalist Dan McCrum who was investigating Wirecard between 2014 and 2020 are mental. I've just checked and McCrum has shared this link as well on Twitter so I count that as a reason to trust it.

jcmp 3y ago
It was in cooperation with a lot of the main german news outlets like "Der Spiegel"[1] and "der Standard"[2] both are german tho ;) [1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/wirecard-skandal-wie-der-manager-jan-marsalek-zum-spion-wurde-a-5cb415ed-0029-4754-8bd5-f4120f4baf83 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/wirecard-skandal-... [2]https://www.derstandard.de/consent/tcf/story/3000000209638/manager-spion-priester-das-unheimliche-doppelleben-des-jan-marsalek https://www.derstandard.de/consent/tcf/story/3000000209638/m...
- badcppdev 3y ago
  Thank you. Der Spiegel had a paywall as well which slowed me down
  - rallyforthesun 3y ago
    https://archive.is/xZq5p https://archive.is/xZq5p
- FinnKuhn 3y ago
  I know I am nitpicking, but "Der Standard" is Austrian.
hef19898 3y ago
And there I was, believing Marsalek was just another useful idiot, and not a full blown GRU operative. I ahve to say, I am impressed a little bit. Just puzzled about the whole goal of this operation. And bit worried the Wirecard management standing trial right now, can use this to get away with the fraud they actively engaged in.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

[flagged]

jajko 3y ago

[flagged]

NicoJuicy 3y ago
Snowden was a huge propaganda asset for Russia. He wouldn't release suspicious activity from Russia, but tried to blame the west in everything. Ps. Look at the raw numbers + eg. GDP). Russia can't start a new cold war, the original cold war was one between equals. Russia is only big in km2
- badcppdev 3y ago
  > He wouldn't release suspicious activity from Russia, but tried to blame the west in everything. Are you confusing Snowden and Assange?
  - NicoJuicy 3y ago
    Yes. You're right Russia had benefits with both. They worked together ( Snowden and Assange). But Snowden wasn't a Russian puppet like Assange.
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  Snowden didn't really have anything to release on Russia. All his stuff was about the US and other Five Eyes nations. I think it was Assange that was basically a Russian stooge.
  - NicoJuicy 3y ago
    Yeah, you're right.
alexejb 3y ago
South america took fugitive nazis. The US didn't really denacify Western Germany and let a lot of the old cadre become leading actors in the post war politics and military of W-Germany. The list could go on and on. All animals are equal but some are more equal.

npalli 3y ago

The Netflix documentary [1] on the Wirecard scandal [2] is great. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21836620/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21836620/ [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal

OskarS 3y ago
The book it's based on, Money Men by Dan McCrum, is also a spectacular read.
- npalli 3y ago
  Indeed. Dan McCrum is prominently figured in the documentary as well.
- this_user 3y ago
  McCrum had already pointed out that Marsalek was at least looking for connections intelligence services, had confirmed connections to at least some former intelligence operatives, and that there were a lot of pieces of evidence that pointed to the strong possibility of connection to Russia. He just didn't find definitive proof, but that was also not the primary focus of his book.
  - rchaud 3y ago
    Yes the book mentions towards the end that Marsalek's location was unknown, but possibly in Russia or Belarus where Interpol would not be able to do much.
- philshem 3y ago
  Another author but a fascinating New Yorker article on the same subject https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/how-the-biggest-fraud-in-german-history-unravelled https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/how-the-bigges...
- hef19898 3y ago
  Highly recommended as well from my side!

cs702 3y ago

I still cannot believe the last photo in the article, showing him in his current disguise as an orthodox priest.

locallost 3y ago
It's not him, but the man whose identity he apparently took. Says so in the image caption.

jonpo 3y ago

Not a surprise but useful to have it confirmed

alxjsn 3y ago

[flagged]

CoastalCoder 3y ago
Yup, that got me as well.
panja 3y ago
I did as well

go13 3y ago

[flagged]

SXX 3y ago

It's not the first story like this and not the last. Right now there is still NASDAQ traded "Freedom Holding Corp" (FRHC) originated from Kazahstan with primary business of fueling sanctioned Russian money and doing other shady business in ex-USSR. Everyone knows they mass open accounts for Russia residents remotely and no one cares. It's not like there are no other banks doing the same, but none of them are owned by US-based entity traded on NASDAQ. SEC certainly wont care until it implode on thousands of retail investors. Going after crypto is far more important. And there are more financial institutions that have banking licenses around the globe (including US, EU and UK) with primary source of income from money laundering and again no one cares until they grow too big or scam all their customers and investors.

_the_inflator 3y ago
You have a point. On the other hand, some actions can serve as a sort of surveillance. Where exactly goes the money? It is like a honeypot or observing your suspects. Shutting down would undoubtedly help, on the other side, understanding systems and beneficiaries needs to be handled in a different manner.
- SXX 3y ago
  That's all great until one day said banking group land on SDN sanctions list losing everything that retail investors who been dumb enough put into it. There are plenty of Turkish and UAE banks that do the same money laundering, but they are not traded on NASDAQ. UPD: In any case my point is not talking about this situation specifically, but just pointing out US has it's own Wirecard and likely are there far more than one example. This is just one I know.
atlasunshrugged 3y ago
Any idea as to why they haven't been investigated and/or de-listed? Is it really just that no one cares? That seems insane to me but I don't know much about the financial services space
- SXX 3y ago

morbicer 3y ago

Not a surprise considering what Citizen Lab found out. https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/79/ https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/79/

lifeisstillgood 3y ago

The UK has just concluded its investigation into “steakknife” - an IRA killer who was also working for British army and killed people on both sides seemingly with impunity. I am guessing there is a mental hurdle in committing larger and larger crimes, but having “permission” from a government spy agency probably makes such things easier. It’s ok to commit this crime - I have permission so it’s not really a crime. The point is, no-one sees themselves as the bad guy.

PedroBatista 3y ago

[flagged]

dindobre 3y ago
Indeed it doesn't. Countless other interesting facts that relate Germany and Russia, politicians, banks, "journalists", etc. We do have to remember that half of it was under USSR influence, to be candid. In my opinion, the war in Ukraine exposed an enormous European mess when it comes to scrutiny and the difference between perceived corruption and reality.
vasac 3y ago
It made sense for both Germany and Russia, but it didn't make sense for somebody else. Now, who that may be is left as an exercise for the reader.
pgeorgi 3y ago
> This type of stuff also might explain one of the reasons why German governments and big conglomerates seemingly have a mental block when dealing with Putin's Russia. The guy is Austrian. > The Nord Stream might be the most "famous" one. How can a society so conservative and risk averse to the point of ridiculousness allow their whole country to be almost exclusively dependent of Russia? It doesn't make any sense. Nord Stream brought in 55% of natural gas managed in Germany. 50% of natural gas managed in Germany was for export. So there's no "almost exclusive" dependency, use of russian gas wasn't a German peculiarity, and Germany could have thrown the rest of Europe under the bus to quickly get rid of any association with russian gas at a moment's notice (by restricting exports to compensate for the loss.) For the record, Germany didn't do that. Germany took cheap natural gas, Europe took cheap natural gas, and when the source for cheap natural gas turned out to be a problem, gears were shifted to get away from that. At a cost, certainly, but probably still cheaper than relying only on more expensive gas sources for 50 years. With the added benefit of calming down the cold war (and the attempt to repeat that performance later-on, which in hindsight was unsuccessful)
- dralley 3y ago
  Maybe that's a fine rationale for Nordstream 1, but it's a terrible rationale for Nordstream 2. There were repeated votes strongly in favor (like, 8-to-1 ratio) of halting the project in European Parliament not to mention strong and vocal opposition from the US, Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics.

tagyro 3y ago

Next up, Solaris Bank and Vivid Money, that is, if BaFin wakes up.

geff82 3y ago
Solaris Bank is Deutsche Bank.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Which could be used as another reason to look into them, right?
- tagyro 3y ago
  what?! no, they are a german bank (which translates to "deutsche bank" in german) but there is no connection (afaik, my infos are 2+ years old now) between Solaris and Deutsche Bank AG.
- geff82 3y ago
  My bad. My comment was wrong indeed. I confused Solaris Bank with norisbank. Norisbank is Deutsche Bank, Solaris Bank is NOT. You were right of course.
sveme 3y ago
Why solaris bank? A lot if startups are relying on them, what‘s wrong with them? Though TradeRepublic moved away from them, makes you wonder.
- tagyro 3y ago
  Last I've heard BaFin actually appointed a special investigator [0] to Solaris [0]: https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/DE/Massnahmen/60b_KWG_84_WpIG_und_57_GwG/meldung_2023_01_26_Solaris_SE.html https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/DE/Massn...
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Though TradeRepublic moved away from them, makes you wonder. TR got its own full-bank license a few months ago [1], it makes sense for them to consolidate stuff in-house instead of paying third parties for their services. That is useful as a startup with a few thousand customers, as the requirements of actually building a bank tech stack are quite massive, but TR has >4M customers now and makes a profit [2]. [1] https://www.capital.de/geld-versicherungen/trade-republic-erhaelt-banklizenz---was-das-fuer-kunden-bedeutet-34262702.html https://www.capital.de/geld-versicherungen/trade-republic-er... [2] https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/fintech/neobroker-trade-republic-ist-erstmals-profitabel-und-nennt-kundenzahlen/ https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/fintech/neobrok...

dosinga 3y ago

> Then as now, the internet’s truly big business came from revenues connected to gambling and pornography This is an idea you hear quite often, but seems very unlikely to be actually true. Internet's truly big businesses are the truly big businesses of the big tech companies

dewey 3y ago
One example: 0.7% of the countries GDP for the Philippines is related to their gambling infrastructure: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Offshore_Gaming_Operator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Offshore_Gaming_O...
whatamidoingyo 3y ago
I'd agree. Big tech is used all day, every day. People aren't browsing porn sites while they're at work (at least, most aren't). However, I can't imagine how many people are browsing at night.
- rchaud 3y ago
  Being at work doesn't preempt anybody from using their phone. A lot of people watch porn without necessarily needing to excuse themselves.
- Mistletoe 3y ago
  Using Big Tech and paying money are two different things. A US user is worth about $13 each quarter to Facebook. A customer on a cam site will pay more than that for a minute private show probably. One porn DVD, etc.
  - whatamidoingyo 3y ago
    That's true. Honestly, when I was thinking about the topic, I didn't consider cam sites, as that's not something I'm too familiar with myself... I assumed most users (or useds, as Stallman would say), were just browsing the billions of free material.
- 3y ago

sampa 3y ago

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deleted 3y ago
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trollbridge 3y ago

Meanwhile: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39560440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39560440 Entities like PayPal and Stripe are complaining they want less EU banking regulation.

deleted 3y ago
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generationP 3y ago
If German intel serves personal data to a known fugitive from justice working with the GRU, then EU regulation is a lost cause. If anything, I want them to know as little as possible.

home-made 3y ago

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home-made 3y ago

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I_am_tiberius 3y ago

For people following the Wirecard story this isn't new.

generationP 3y ago
That Marsalek works for Russian intel isn't new. Many of the details are.

tivert 3y ago

> The CEO of the company was Markus Braun, a former KPMG consultant from a middle-class family in Vienna. Braun modeled his appearance on Steve Jobs, always wearing a black turtleneck and wire-frame eyeglasses Didn't Elizabeth Holmes do that too? Never trust people who consciously dress like Steve Jobs on days other than Halloween.

_visgean 3y ago
I wear glasses and i wear turtleneck in the winter. I am bit trying to emulate Jobs, I just dont want my throat to be exposed to wind.
- tivert 3y ago
  > I wear glasses and i wear turtleneck in the winter. I am bit trying to emulate Jobs, I just dont want my throat to be exposed to wind. Just don't wear a black one and you're fine.
  - _visgean 3y ago
    i wear a black one. Really nice one from charity shop for 7 pounds.. but I dont mind the occasional "steve jobs" snark
kiddico 3y ago
Not unlike the toothbrush mustache, black turtlenecks have been ruined for everyone.
- 9dev 3y ago
  Shame, that is. Ever found yourself in front of the mirror thinking, "trim a little here, a little there -- whoops, thaaat's too much"? Ruined that for all of us, the small man.
deleted 3y ago
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photochemsyn 3y ago

Interesting story - sounds like Wirecard may have been a Russian version of the BCCI. For comparison: https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm > "The unofficial story of BCCI's links to U.S. intelligence is complicated by the inability of investigators to determine whether private persons affiliated with U.S. intelligence were undertaking actions such as selling U.S. arms to a foreign government outside ordinary channels on their own behalf, or ostensibly under sanction of a U.S. government agency, policy, or operation."

Log_out_ 3y ago

German (sp/h)ygh society, it's almost like any longterm spywar breeds a mafia, they are loyal first to themselves and their thiefdoms everywhere.

dogman144 3y ago

Everytime crypto gets harangued as a money laundering cesspool, I think of HSBC’s highest performing branch in Sinaloa and Germany’s fintech giant payment processor run by a GRU spy. As in two money laundering behemoths right out in the regulated open. Give me a break.

dogman144 3y ago
lol for those downvoting, here are the facts: - HSBC was fined about $2.5b all in all by US govt in 2010’s (one of largest ever) for laundering $900m for cartels over multiple years. The Sinaloa branch (not NYC, Zurich, Greenwich, London… but Sinaloa) was their highest performing branch for a long stretch - Why exactly would a German unicorn payment processors’ COO be a longterm agent… GRU’s infiltration of German finance and energy industry for laundering and energy markets access is an open secret.
sgt101 3y ago
other bad things do not make a bad thing ok
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  And what's the innately "bad" thing about crypto?
  - sgt101 3y ago
    I think that the separation of the power to issue a currency from the state is profoundly dangerous, undermines the source of legitimacy of our society, and likely to destroy any possibility of a kind and fulfilling world for billions of people. The current form of money that we use relies on the structure and status of the states that issue it, and the relationships that they have with one another. This is not positive in every way, for example the military dominance of the United States underpins the value of the dollar internationally. However, some measure of democratic accountability additional to brute force and pure market economics has allowed some diversion of wealth to create some measure of social justice. I think there is no sign at all that crypto will provide this and instead if it was allowed to run wild the world would be ruled by people like Elon Musk with no restraint. Apart from that it's fine!

calibas 3y ago

This is what actual reporting looks like. Look at most news stories these days. There's some kind of conflict, two parties don't agree on something, and they report both "sides" of the story. Because the writers don't know what really occurred, it's common that a news story will give equal weight to lies and truth (or semi-truth and semi-truth). In the insanity of normal society, this is actually promoted as a good thing. News stations pat themselves on the back for being "fair and balanced", and use it as proof of being "unbiased". It's the opposite of unbiased, when there's no bias there are no "sides". You can't take both sides in a conflict, each "side" being a heavily biased opinion in itself, and combine them together to create a lack of bias. That's not how it works, two conflicting partial truths don't equal a whole truth, two conflicting partial truths just create cognitive dissonance (FUD). Now look at this news story, it's quite different from what I described above. It's proper investigative journalism where the goal is cutting through opinions and second-hand information to find the actual truth. It's a major accomplishment and something to be applauded. In my heavily-biased opinion, it's the job of a free press to seek and report the truth, to create new stories like this one, not to report "both sides". And to illustrate when I'm saying, look at what happens to be the #1 story on my Google News at this moment: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/middleeast/gaza-food-truck-deaths-israel-wwk-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/middleeast/gaza-food-truck-de... CNN doesn't know exactly what happened, there's conflicting stories, and all we know for sure is that a bunch of hungry Palestinians were just killed while trying to get food. Here's what CNN found: According to Palestine it's Israel's fault. According to Israel it's Palestine's fault. Yes, clear as mud. It's the perfect kind of reporting for adding to the controversy and acting like there's no clear right & wrong, or viable solutions to the conflict. It's how I would do things if I wanted to extend the war as long as possible. However, I'm biased toward peace and preservation of life, so it's quite clear to me what's causing food riots and subsequent massacres.

red_admiral 3y ago
When something newsworthy happens, like many civilian deaths around a food truck, people reading the news want two things: they want the truth, and they want it now. I agree with you that good journalism seeks the truth first of all - but that takes time and if everyone else is talking about that truck today, your news outlet has to feature that story too somehow. Maybe we'll have a proper investigative report on that truck in a week, or a month. I remember that earlier in the war, when some kind of rocket struck a hospital in Gaza, Israel and Hamas also blamed each other - then President Biden said as far as his intelligence goes, it was Hamas and I think that's the consensus now? We might never know for sure, but in the immediate aftermath of the hit the options for a media outlet were basically "we don't know" or "it was definitely the side we don't like". The truthful answer until someone's done the investigation is the former, but that gets you the kind of article on CNN that you're pointing out.

DyslexicAtheist 3y ago

delusions of grandeur strongly remind me of Paul LeRoux https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/ https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/ ... also Kim Dotcom who I met personally before going on a run to Asia. He too had cardboard cutouts of himself as a cartoon character all over his Munich office of DataProtect. Funny that Kim Schmitz managed to settle in NZ and not Russia. He is an outlier, probably lacked the RU connection back then.

crotchfire 3y ago
The book _Kingpin_ about LeRoux is a great read! Fun and geeky. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9319468-kingpin https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9319468-kingpin Especially liked the part where he is asked "so why do you keep your piles of cash in Pelican cases"? "Because they float."
- deleted 3y ago
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epistasis 3y ago

With Schulz's truly strange behavior in stalling support for Ukraine, and involvement in the Wirecard and cum-ex scandals, I truly wonder if there might be some kompromat hanging over Scholz's head around this.

pelasaco 3y ago
That's not new (in German) https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-verantwortung/wirecard-wird-olaf-scholz-von-wladimir-putin-erpresst-li.2174117 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/wirtschaft-verantwortung/wir...
Vuizur 3y ago
Scholz does not stall support for Ukraine, Germany has given about 10 times as much military aid as France to Ukraine: https://www.politico.eu/article/military-aid-ukraine-france-way-behind-germany/ https://www.politico.eu/article/military-aid-ukraine-france-... Also compared to the US, Germany has given about 60 billion total aid (including the EU share + refugee cost) if I calculate it correctly, while the US has given 75 billion. So it gives much more per GDP.
usrusr 3y ago
There have been claims that in Putin's Dresden days, he happened to be assigned as the personal shadow of Scholz when young Olaf visited eastern Germany as a representative of the SPD youth organization. That would imply that Putin had been personally working on a file on him more than thirty years before Scholz became chancellor. This would certainly add some weight to any speculations about Putin having some form of leverage over Scholz. Being compromised does not eventually wear off over time, it compounds with every successful use. https://twitter.com/Jay_Bibo_Mario/status/1721667010092831033 https://twitter.com/Jay_Bibo_Mario/status/172166701009283103... I don't know if that assignment has been confirmed by any other source, but we do know that the visits have happened. They are even documented in radio archives. According to present day public broadcasting journalists, those actually happen to be the oldest known public recordings of Scholz.

3pm 3y ago

Is there a word that describes a very loosely organized but extremely powerful entity, that is kind of a nation state but also kind of a mafia and also kind of a business? Can it just be summarized as Putin's regime? But then it will function without him, maybe even more effectively. And its only ideology is the hate toward Western values (and love of the Western toys). What you call it?

dh2022 3y ago
I can’t wait to see what happens in Russia post-Putin. I mean, the guy is 71 years old. Maybe he will hang on for another 10-15 years. I can’t wait to see what happens then. As far as I can tell none of his biological offspring is being pushed as next leader.
- 3pm 3y ago
  How much does he matter you think? After reading the article, did you get the impression that all the colorful characters will suddenly change their ways after Putin dies? It seems the whole thing is very very loosely organized. More Camorra than Cosa Nostra. They kinda off like reverse James Bonds, but not exactly.
  - dh2022 3y ago
    Well, a power struggle would be quite the thing to watch. At least for me. Kinda like what happened when Stalin died. (My personal forecast excludes return to democracy; it includes something similar to what happened after Stalin died).
    - 3pm 3y ago
      Yes, I think the chance to soft-land USSR into a democracy was missed by the West in the 90s. I don't see how the brainwashed population and their globe trotting elite will change their views now. It did not have to be this way.
      - 3y ago

mseepgood 3y ago

Why is Germany always so naive when it comes to Russian espionage and infiltration?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Krasnol 3y ago
They are not in the conflict flow anymore. It's been trained out of their system for quite some time. It leads to some naive assumptions about how the world works. Even the events around the current conflict seem not to have shaken the society, from what I witness. The Green parties wishes on the topic of heat pumps or people coming to their country whose skin color is not white have more revolutionary potential than Russians right around the corner or people blowing up their gas pipelines. They are too busy with themselves and stuff like that is just embarrassing. It only serves as filling material for your everyday complaining orgy every single morning at work. Stuff a healthy German citizen leaves behind them at Feierabend.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > The Green parties wishes on the topic of heat pumps ... which are the most efficient way to wean us off of Russian gas. The Greens have pushed for years now to get rid of fossil fuel dependencies, turns out they did have a point all those decades.
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    AFAIK they killed nuclear and pushed towards natural gas (from Russia) at the time.
    - Krasnol 3y ago
      They never "pushed towards natural gas" and nuclear was killed by the Merkel Government while also stopping all renewable expansion for 16 years. Nuclear has been replaced many years ago by renewables in Germany. Stop spreading Michael Shillenbergers propaganda. Germany doesn't need nuclear the same way they don't need Russian gas anymore. You should all cheer for the Greens and for their foresight towards the end of the 90s when they pushed for renewables. Germany would still be struggling without them and Putin's gas if it hadn't been for their push for renewables.

thriftwy 3y ago

What was in it for Russia? The missing 1.9 billions would be an interesting asset for e.g. NK secret services, but for Russia it's a drop in a bucket.

thriftwy 3y ago
> The anti-revolutionary activities were being orchestrated by the FSB’s Fifth Service, the Russian organization’s foreign intelligence arm. One can only wonder what SBU was doing in the meantime...
intuitionist 3y ago
The money was not stolen; it never existed in the first place. The fraud at Wirecard started before Marsalek seems to have been recruited as a Russian asset; the GRU probably didn’t even know it was happening until fairly late in the game. As frauds tend to do, it snowballed, until you’re setting up a Potemkin bank branch in the Philippines to get your auditor off your back about the couple billion Euros in cash you claim to have. Still, I can think of a few reasons why an intelligence service might want to be connected to the wealthy COO of a company that processes payments for porn websites and offshore casinos…
3pm 3y ago
There is no single 'Russia' and certainly not one entity _got_ the whole 1.9 billion. It looks like a fairly loosely coupled ecosystem of shady actors. They are privateers in a war. Not unlike Francis Drake. The war that everyone in Russia knows they're in.
- intuitionist 3y ago
  No entity “got the whole 1.9 billion” because it was fictitious. The nature of the Wirecard fraud was (at least mostly) not that real profits were being siphoned off to nefarious entities, it’s that they were faking the profits.
dralley 3y ago
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/hes-wanted-for-wirecards-missing-2-billion-hes-now-suspected-of-being-a-russian-spy-61d79ee2 https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/hes-wanted-for-wirecards-mi... "British prosecutors say that from 2020 to 2023, Marsalek ran a ring of five U.K. based Bulgarians who are alleged to have spied for Russia, directing them to gather information on people with the aim of helping the Kremlin abduct them. Officials say Marsalek was used by Russian intelligence services as a middleman to put distance between them and the spy network as it targeted individuals across Europe." ... "While running Wirecard, Marsalek helped the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and the SVR, its main overseas spying organization, pay intelligence officers and informants and funnel money into conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa, according to the officials. At the same time, these Western officials suspect Marsalek was gathering information on other customers of Munich-based Wirecard, most notably Germany’s main BND intelligence agency and the Federal Criminal Office, the country’s equivalent of the FBI, and handing it over to Moscow." ... "Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, as well as the country’s equivalent of the FBI, the BKA, told parliament during a public inquiry that ran from September 2020 to June 2021 that they had used Wirecard credit cards and bank accounts for their agents abroad as well as for paying informants at home and abroad. Senior German intelligence officials confirmed this to The Wall Street Journal. " ... "Marsalek ordered Wirecard Bank employees to breach data-protection and other rules to compile data about clients, according to testimony by former executives to German prosecutors. Several intelligence officials said it could have provided information about intelligence agents’ work. Wirecard’s former chief product officer, Susane Steidl, said Marsalek had overruled objections to collecting customer data and told her in 2019 he needed the data for the BND—something the agency categorically denies."

generationP 3y ago

Interestingly, the article completely avoids mentioning the familial trail: > Marsalek's grandfather, [Hans Maršálek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Mar%C5%A1%C3%A1lek https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Mar%C5%A1%C3%A1lek), was a member of the Austrian resistance and later a suspected spy for the Soviet Union. And following the link to Hans Maršálek's page: > He was long suspected of being a Soviet asset. Recently uncovered documents indicate that are grounds to believe he was responsible for helping the Soviets kidnap at least four people and illegally render them to Moscow for torture and interrogation. While I am not surprised that a socialist persecuted under the Nazis would join Soviet efforts, this is some useful backstory in understanding why Marsalek the younger apparently had no reserves in collaborating with the KGB.

danielodievich 3y ago

Reading this reporting (Christo Grozev == quality always) reminds me of the experience reading of The Sword and the Shield by Christopher, MI5 historian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrokhin_Archive) and just shaking my head at the complex web of money, ideas, and corruption spun and counterspun by various spy agencies. The Archive blew up stuff dating back to tsarist Russia, and exposed some brilliant operation, and tons more pedestrian money-grabbing. These days with OSINT the exposure of it no longer relies on someone sneaking out paper in huge milk jugs and suitcases like Mitrokhin did. And as a russian who came to states as a refugee it also boils my blood to see how much my former homeland is stirring the pots and slinging sh*t around the world and how many people can be bought. It is all going to end in a huge explosion 1917 style and a disaster for so many.

trhway 3y ago

>By this point, Wirecard’s client list included Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, giving Marsalek — and the Russian intelligence services — access to sensitive data about German law enforcement’s slate of confidential informants. that is a breach on a Hanssen level

wly_cdgr 3y ago

It's all so cliche and mundane and sordid and DULL

petterkinslove 3y ago

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