Sina Tech News reported on the evening of July 22, Beijing time. According to foreign media reports, German prosecutors today arrested three former executives of German payments giant Wirecard, saying they suspected they used false accounts to defraud creditors of 1 billion euros.
According to the German prosecutor's office, the prosecution today arrested Wirecard's former CEO Markus Braun (Markus Braun), as well as the former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and the former Chief Accounts Officer (CAO), based on the testimony of a cooperative witness. Last month, Wirecard CEO Braun surrendered himself, but was released again after paying bail. Now, Braun has been arrested again.
Anne Leiding (Anne Leiding), a spokesman for the Munich State Attorney's Office, said the three former executives allegedly conspired with others to inflate the company's revenue by falsifying the business. This created the illusion that Wirecard had considerable financial strength, and Wirecard subsequently successfully raised 3.2 billion euros (about 3.7 billion US dollars).
Reading told the media today: “In fact, at least until the end of 2015, Wirecard's real business was at a loss.” Currently, prosecutors are investigating Braun and his suspected accomplices (whose names have not been revealed) to assess whether they are suspected of organized commercial crime fraud, trust breaches, falsification of accounts, and market manipulation.
Wirecard announced in the middle of last month that the external auditor EY was unable to verify the 1.9 billion euros (2.1 billion US dollars) of cash that the company should have stored in the Bank of Asia. Subsequently, Wirecard also issued a statement saying that the 1.9 billion euro cash balance, whose whereabouts are unknown, may not exist at all. On June 25, Wirecard filed for bankruptcy and owed creditors nearly 4 billion US dollars.
This huge accounting scandal not only reduced Wirecard's stock price by 98% and the departure of company executives, including the CEO and COO, but also raised a wider range of issues. Some experts even called the scandal “Germany's Enron” (which occurred in 2001 when Enron went bankrupt in the US).
Earlier this month, the Munich prosecution announced that as part of an investigation into the Wirecard accounting scandal, the German prosecution and police had searched Wirecard's headquarters and four other properties.
Wirecard was once considered one of the most promising technology companies in Europe. Its market capitalization once reached 28 billion US dollars, but now it is only 220 million euros. Reading said that due to Wirecard's bankruptcy, its multi-billion dollar loans were largely unrecoverable. (Li Ming)