A Munich court has extended the Wirecard trial for Germany’s largest fraud case since 1945 for a further year up to the end of 2025, a court spokesman has announced.
The criminal trial of former Wirecard boss, Markus Braun and two co-accused, which opened two years ago and has heard 140 witnesses over 168 trial days, is to be extended by 83 trial days up to December 18 next year.
While there is no doubt that fraud was perpetrated by inflating the financial service and payment provider’s turnover, identifying the guilty parties is less easy.
Wirecard, a once high-flying German tech company, spectacularly collapsed in the summer of 2020 after €1.9 billion allegedly held in South-East Asian escrow accounts could not be traced, resulting in hundreds of civil lawsuits in addition to criminal proceedings.
When the firm collapsed, it owed creditor banks more than $3.2 billion, according to the prosecution.
Braun, who has been in custody for four and a half years, denies all charges. He accuses a group centred on Jan Marsalek, a board member who has evaded arrest and co-accused Oliver Bellenhaus of being behind the fraud.
However, Bellenhaus has repeatedly accused Braun of involvement.
Thousands of documents are being examined, including presumably fraudulent contracts, emails, genuine and allegedly falsified evidence of payments and other documents from several countries.
