Inside the Wirecard Collapse: How €1.9 Billion Vanished from a DAX-30 Giant

Описание: The Wirecard collapse remains one of the largest corporate fraud cases in European history, a scandal that wiped a DAX 30 company off the German stock market in days after auditors could not confirm the existence of €1.9 billion in cash the company claimed to hold in trustee accounts in the Philippines.

This video traces Wirecard's rise from a payment-processing startup to a DAX 30 heavyweight worth more than Deutsche Bank, the years of investigative reporting and whistleblower warnings the company denied and fought in court, the fabricated third-party acquiring business that hid the fraud, the June 2020 collapse and insolvency filing, and the aftermath: CEO Markus Braun's conviction and nine-year prison sentence in November 2024, and COO Jan Marsalek's disappearance into Russia, where prosecutors say he now directs intelligence operations from hiding.

If you want more deeply researched breakdowns of corporate fraud, executive misconduct, and business collapses like this one, subscribe to The Downfall Desk.

This video is based on public court records, regulatory findings (BaFin/ESMA), and reporting from the Financial Times, Bellingcat, and Der Spiegel; claims about Jan Marsalek's current location and alleged ties to Russian intelligence remain unresolved allegations from prosecutors and journalists, since he has never been tried.