Markus Braun, the former chief executive officer of Wirecard AG, denied all charges at a trial over his alleged role in an epic fraud scandal that sparked the spectacular demise of one of Germany’s top companies.
(Bloomberg) — Markus Braun, the former chief executive officer of Wirecard AG, denied all charges at a trial over his alleged role in an epic fraud scandal that sparked the spectacular demise of one of Germany’s top companies.
In his first public comments about his involvement in an episode that wiped out billions in shareholder value, Braun spoke of a “day of of shock and pain” when in June 2020 the once high-flying digital-payment company collapsed, adding that he is sorry for the shareholders and the employees.
“I had no knowledge of any forgeries at the company and was never a member of any criminal gang,” Braun said at a hearing in Munich in Monday.
Wirecard crumbled in 2020, admitting that more than $2 billion in cash it had previously reported as merely missing likely never existed, and the company then filed for insolvency a few days later on June 25, 2020, hammering investors and destroying Germany’s efforts to breed a new technology champion rivaling Silicon Valley.
Read More: Wirecard CEO Gets Day in Court After Two Years Behind Bars
Braun has been on trial at the Munich Regional Court since December alongside two co-defendants — former chief accountant Stephan von Erffa and Oliver Bellenhaus, who ran a Wirecard company in Dubai and who has become a key witness.
Bellenhaus has been cooperating with prosecutors since the very early days of the probe. In his testimony in December and January he has told the court that the allegation were true, that the books were cooked at Wirecard and that Braun was behind it.
Braun’s lawyer Alfred Dierlamm last week called Bellenhaus a “professional liar” and Sabine Stetter, von Erffa’s defense attorney, said Bellenhaus deleted data at Wirecard and lied even to his wife.
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