German police have been searching for years for Jan Marsalek, who is suspected of having embezzled billions of euros through Wirecard and thought to be working as an agent for the Russian intelligence agency FSB. DER SPIEGEL tracked him down in Moscow.
Even aside from the whole “fraud and running off with billions of euros” thing, the fact that he was working for Russian intelligence while running a large fintech company in Europe seems like a concern. First, financial transaction data seems sensitive. Second:
Wirecard was founded in 1999 and took care of the technical processing of credit card payments for online vendors. According to the Spiegel, its clientele initially “consisted primarily of porno and gambling sites”.[13] In 2002, when it was close to folding at the end of the dot-com bubble, Markus Braun injected capital and joined as CEO. He consolidated the company and focused the business model on providing internet payment services, initially mainly to porn and gambling websites.[14]
Gambling transactions are one way to launder money.
Even aside from the whole “fraud and running off with billions of euros” thing, the fact that he was working for Russian intelligence while running a large fintech company in Europe seems like a concern. First, financial transaction data seems sensitive. Second:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard
Gambling transactions are one way to launder money.