The fraudster used the company he worked for, Wirecard, to illegally help Russian intelligence agencies move money to finance transactions around the world.
Former COO of German payments company Wirecard Jan Marsalek was most likely a Russian agent for almost 10 years. He fled to Moscow after the disappearance of about $2 billion became known in 2020. from the company's balance sheet.
This is stated in an article by The Wall Street Journal.
The article states that shortly after the German payment transaction services giant Wirecard reported the disappearance of about $2 billion from its balance sheet in June 2020, Marsalek boarded a private jet and flew out of Austria. This plane landed in Belarus, from where Marsalek was taken by car to Moscow. There he received a Russian passport under a false name.
“Western intelligence and security officials have now reached an alarming conclusion: Marsalek has most likely been a Russian agent for nearly a decade,” – the publication notes.
Marsalek helped the Russian Federation finance operations around the world
Marsalek has already been accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from investors. After multiple international investigations, officials say the 43-year-old Austrian native used Wirecard to illegally help Russian intelligence agencies move money to finance transactions around the world.
The director of operations at Wirecard also helped mercenaries from Evgeniy Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC.
According to Western intelligence, Marsalek is currently reconfiguring his business empire in Africa on behalf of Russian officials from his new residence in Dubai.
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What is known about Jan Marsalek – facts from his biography
Marsalek was born in 1980 in Klosterneuburg, Austria. His paternal grandfather Hans Marsalek was an ethnic Czech communist and resistance fighter who survived a Nazi concentration camp and co-founded what became Austria's intelligence service. Hans was awarded Austria's highest honor for his achievements before the state. In early 2023, historians found evidence in the archives indicating that Hans was a double agent and worked for the USSR.
Former employees remember Jan Marsalek as a bon vivant (a lover of parties and a rich lifestyle), who at one time rented a mansion in Munich for 35 thousand euros per month. He earned millions of dollars a year and traveled around the world on private jets.
The businessman was also obsessed with secret global espionage, but many believed it was just a bluff.
One day, at his headquarters in Munich, Marsalek showed a visitor a selfie with actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Libyan field marshal Khalifa Haftar. According to two people, there was a statue of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the businessman's desk.
Marsalek led 5 Bulgarian spies from Britain
According to information from British prosecutors, in the period 2020-2023, the Wirecard operations director led a group of five Bulgarian spies living in Britain for Russia. They collected information about people to facilitate their abduction. And the Russian intelligence services used Marsalek as an intermediary.
The businessman was on Interpol's most wanted list. However, in 2021, he managed to open a consulting company in London in his own name, using the passport of a Czech citizen. This company closed in 2022. It could have been used to pay spies.
Helped to buy weapons for Russia in Dubai
According to Western intelligence agencies, Marsalek also visited Dubai and worked there with a retired Russian intelligence officer who was buying weapons for the Russian Federation. According to representatives of the intelligence services, he and some of his accomplices now spend most of their time in the emirate.
The UAE government and the businessman's German lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. And a representative of the Russian government called the accusations of Marsalek’s connections with the Russian intelligence services “politicization.”
Helped Russia in conflicts in the Middle East and Africa
Wirecard officials said Marsalek also helped Russia's GRU and SVR pay intelligence workers and informants, as well as funnel money to conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa.
Transferred information about German intelligence to Moscow
Western officials suspect that Marsalek collected and transferred information about other Wirecard clients to Moscow. In particular, we are talking about Germany's main intelligence agency, the BND, and the Federal Criminal Office (equivalent to the American FBI).
Such information would allow Russian spies to track the extent of intelligence gathering in Germany. German intelligence officials reported that they were forced to relocate and create new identities for some people.
Wirecard bankruptcy
Marsalek joined Wirecard in 2020. The company then provided payment services to pornography and gambling sites. It grew quickly to become a rare success story for German technologists. Wirecard had such authority in Germany that then-Chancellor Angela Merkel negotiated with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to allow the company to operate in the Chinese market.
However, in June 2020, Wirecard declared bankruptcy because it could not find 1.9 billion euros in cash, which was reflected in the company's balance sheet. Prosecutors allege that billion in investor funds were siphoned off through sham and inflated transactions.
Wirecard CEO Markus Braun was accused of defrauding investors and other crimes. Brown's lawyer said he was unaware of any intelligence-related activities by Marsalek.
Marszalek was involved in intelligence while working at Wirecard
According to investigators and a parliamentary investigation in Germany, Marsalek was involved in intelligence throughout his time at Wirecard. His business partners included intelligence officers and ex-spies from the United States, Europe and the Middle East, as well as people and organizations associated with the Russian intelligence services.
Two former business associates of Marsalek reported that he said that worked for both the Russian intelligence services and their Western counterparts. The businessman boasted that he traveled to Libya and Syria with Russian partners. He said that he was involved in transferring funds for Russian intelligence services and mercenaries in these two countries.
Marsalek also shared that he traveled to Libya and Syria with former Kremlin official Stanislav Petlinsky, now living in Monaco.
Germany's foreign intelligence service and the German equivalent of the FBI, the WKA, used Wirecard credit cards and bank accounts for their agents abroad and to pay informants at home and abroad. At VKA, Wirecard accounted for up to a third of payments. The source said that the German intelligence services used this particular company because it was more accommodating than many other banks in the West.
German intelligence agencies say the agents' real identities are not linked to secret bank accounts, so Marsalek had limited ability to pass on secrets about the European nation to Russia. However, Marsalek had access to the agents' aliases and was able to track some of their movements and activities, monitoring payments and purchases.
Marszalek ordered Wirecard Bank employees to violate security and other rules to collect customer data. Some officials suspect that he transferred this data to Russia.
As investigators and intelligence officers said, Marsalek most often chose Russia when traveling around the world as an executive director. He made dozens of trips there in the years before his escape.
German counterintelligence refuses to say how they dealt with the consequences, but the agents were forced to change their pseudonyms and sever all ties with the bank.
By the way, trials are currently ongoing in Germany in the case of a former employee of the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service, to whom the Russian intelligence service paid at least 450 thousand euros in exchange for information about weapons that the West transferred to Ukraine.
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