Marsalek, a 40-year-old Austrian resident and the former COO of the crumbled German Wirecard financials firm, used technology by allegedly transferring Bitcoins (BTC) from Dubai into Russia, where he is currently under the radar, as announced by a Russian news source.
As announced by the Russian news source last July 20, Marsalaek is currently evading the Austrian and German authorities and have been hiding in a house somewhere west of Moscow under close watch from the Russian intelligence agents. There was no details of the total amount of BTC that Marsalek transferred before arriving Russia.
Marsalek Connection to Russian Intelligence
Wirecard lost its business after the auditors from Ernst and Young raised issues that about 2 Billion Euros are missing from their balance sheet. Marsalek was the COO of Wirecard since 2010, was responsible for the Wirecard’s Asian region’s operation.
Last June 18, Marsalek, with the entire management team, was terminated from their job. Marsalek infromed his co-workers that he will be travelling to the Philippines to try to pursue and locate the missing billions, to prove to everyone that he’s not involved — he disappeared soon after that.
Marsalek was last heard of to have been in Belarus. As per investigative journalists from Bellingcat, a joint search revealed that Russian migration records kept by Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB) that implies that Russia’s security administration has had a deep-rooted relationship Marsalek.
Marsalek was discovered to have been using various international passports – even a third-country diplomatic passport to visit Russia on many occasions over the past 15 years. It additionally was discovered that immigration records had been forged for his benefit to cover his tracks as he advanced into Minsk, the capital city of Belarus.
The research focuses on Marsalek getting help and having connections to Russian FSB intelligence. Bellingcat stated that,
“FSB has unlimited authority over the Russian border service and subsequently over the centralized Russia-Belarus border information. In this manner any control of information would need to be done at the command of, or possibly with the concent of, the FSB.”
Currently, both Austrian and German authorities have included Marsalek on their most wanted list on the charges of extortion and theft identified with the 2 Billion Euro that disappeared from Wirecard.
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