Markus Braun once appeared as a technology guru. Wirecard collapsed in 2020, according to the indictment, the visionary was a fraudster worth billions. Braun says he is innocent – he now has to explain that in court.
In the trial of the alleged billion-euro fraud at the former Dax group Wirecard, former CEO Markus Braun rejects all allegations of the prosecution. “I had no knowledge of counterfeiting or embezzlement,” Braun said on Monday before the fourth chamber of the Munich Regional Court. “I also didn’t form a gang with anyone,” emphasized Braun in his first statement on the allegations since the trial began in December.
The public prosecutor accuses Braun, his two co-defendants and several other suspects of commercial gang fraud. They are said to have invented sales in the billions, falsified the balance sheets and cheated the company’s lenders by more than three billion euros. Wirecard collapsed in the summer of 2020 after the company had to admit that 1.9 billion euros of proceeds allegedly booked in trust accounts could not be found. “I had no knowledge that these funds were embezzled,” Braun said.
The manager Oliver Bellenhaus, who will work for Wirecard in Dubai until 2020, appears in the proceedings as a key witness for the prosecution and has heavily accused Braun in the course of the process so far. According to his statement, Braun was a dominating boss who was fully involved in the billion-dollar fraud. The former CEO has been in custody since the summer of 2020.
Source: Stern
