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Berlin (dpa) - A former lawyer for the scandalous company Wirecard has rejected allegations that serious blackmail allegations in the case were fictitious.
That “was not limited to a robber pistol,” said the Munich resident on Thursday in the Bundestag Wirecard Committee.
He received information on very specific dates, figures and people.
The lawyer had reported to the Munich public prosecutor in 2019 that Wirecard was being blackmailed from the media industry.
As a result, the financial supervisory authority Bafin banned bets on falling prices at Wirecard - which many investors interpreted as a sign that everything was okay with the scandalous group despite critical media reports.
According to the MPs, the alleged fraud of billions was only uncovered much later.
He had passed on his information about the extortion "because it was my job as a representative of someone who was injured at the time in a market manipulation procedure," said the lawyer.
He was not involved in the decision to prohibit short sales.
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The lawyer reported that his contacts at Wirecard were CEO Markus Braun, top manager Jan Marsalek and chief legal counsel Andrea Görres.
Braun is now in custody, Marsalek is on the run.
Both are accused of being largely responsible for the alleged billion-dollar fraud at Wirecard.
The public prosecutor assumes that the formerly up-and-coming fintech has shown fictitious profits since 2015.
Last summer, the now insolvent Wirecard admitted a balance sheet hole of 1.9 billion euros.
The case is considered to be the biggest accounting scandal in post-war Germany, with damage to thousands of small investors.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210506-99-497004 / 2