- Jan Marsalek, COO of Wirecard, disappeared as the company crumbled during cases of fraud.
- Marsalek asserted he was going to Asia, however, is thought to have fled to Belarus.
- Marsalek is believed to be under serious investigation by three western intelligence agency over his connection with the GRU.
Jan Marsalek, the previous Chief Operations Officer of the crumbled Wirecard financial firm, has been found in Belarus after supposedly headed to the Philippines to search for the missing 2 Billion Euros from the company’s spreadsheet.
Jan Marsalek surprisingly disappeared not long after undertaking an investigation for Wirecard’s missing assets, which he guaranteed would free him from any allegations. Unexpectedly, it was found that he never made it to the Philippines, and was concealed with the assistance of the FSB, a Russian intelligence agency.
Marsalek was accounted for to have entered the Philippines where he flew from Manila to Cebu and afterward on to China last June. In any case, the Philippines immigration officials have declared that there is no proof he at any point showed up or records of his alleged departure from Cebu City to China.
Where in the World is Jan Marsalek?
Wirecard, a German Financial Firm crumbled a week ago after evaluators Ernst and Young announced an incident that around 2 Billion Euro is missing from their audit related the financial firms books. The 40-year-old Austrian resident, Marsalek, who held the position of COO of Wirecard since 2010, was the head of operations in the Asian region.
Last June, Marsalek explained to his colleagues that he was going to the Philippines to find the missing billions, to prove his innocence — but to everyone’s surprise, he went missing later that day.
The sum was presumably held to cover risks in trading carried out by third parties on Wirecard’s behalf and was intended to be under the trustee accounts in two well known banks in the Philippines
Unexpectedly, the Central Bank of the Philippines disclosed that the cash did not enter its monetary system and both Asian banks, BDO and BPI, denied having a relationship with Wirecard.
Despite the fact that there were airline bookings and immigration records that showed he had made his way to Manila on the June 23rd and then left onward to China, a more through investigation by the Philippine authorities found that that the trip appeared to have been a diversion, since immigration records had been forged on his behalf. This has raised the alarm of the authorities that Marsalek immediately became wanted by German and Austrian authorities on the charges of fraud and embezzlement.
The company, which employs nearly 6,000 people, was forced to admit that the funds likely ‘does not exist’.
As per accounts by investigative journalists from Bellingcat, Der Spiegel, and the Insider, Marsalek was reported to have fled to Minsk, Belarus last on July 18.
Morever, the joint research also uncovered Russian immigration records and data kept by Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB) that suggest that Russia’s security service had a long-standing interest in Marsalek, who used a number of different passports – including a third-country diplomatic passport – to visit Russia dozens of times in the last 15 years. During 2017, it appears that Russia’s security services are likely to have had met with Marsalek in Moscow on one of these trips.
Source: Bellingcat Report
The investigation points to Marsalek receiving help from Russia’s FSB intelligence, Bellingcat wrote:
“FSB HAS COMPLETE CONTROL OVER THE RUSSIAN BORDER SERVICE AND THUS OVER THE CENTRALIZED RUSSIA-BELARUS BORDER DATABASE. THEREFORE ANY MANIPULATION OF DATA WOULD HAVE TO BE DONE AT THE BEHEST OF, OR AT LEAST WITH THE CONSENT OF, THE FSB.”
Marsalek being free to traverse these FSB controlled borders undetected does appear to directly indicate collaboration between the former Wirecard COO and Russian Intelligence.
The data shared by Bellingcat shows that he flew to Belarus on June 19th and has not yet left the country.
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