Billion-dollar fraud at Wirecard: mammoth process will take 300 days

On June 18, 2020, the former DAX group Wirecard had to admit that 1.9 billion euros were missing from escrow accounts in Asia. A week later, the payment processor collapsed. He was broke. All financial records related to these accounts were found to be forgeries. It is one of the biggest financial scandals in German post-war history. The company’s market value disappeared into nothing. Around 50,000 shareholders lost 24 billion euros.

There is a risk of 15 years in prison

The trial against Braun and two other former managers has been running before the Munich I regional court since December 2022. The defendants are accused of having fabricated billions in sales and falsified balance sheets over the years.

If convicted of commercial gang fraud, accounting falsification, market manipulation and breach of trust, Braun & Co. could face up to 15 years in prison. The basis for this is more than 200 witness statements from more than 230 days of negotiations. The judges assume that the damage relevant to the sentencing will be at least 747 million euros.

Braun rejects all allegations

The court still sees a risk of escape and obscurity. There is concrete evidence that Braun has set aside assets worth tens of millions of dollars that could be used for an escape.

According to the Munich Higher Regional Court, Braun is strongly suspected of the crimes he is accused of, as can be seen from a decision dated December 4, 2025, according to the Handelsblatt.

Braun rejects all allegations. He sees himself as a victim of a gang around the fugitive Jan Marsalek and the also accused Oliver Bellenhaus, the former Wirecard governor in Dubai. They funneled the proceeds from the actually existing third-party business into foreign accounts and thus embezzled them.

39 more days of trial

The focus of Wirecard’s business was primarily payment processing for porn and online gambling sites. After a good 270 days of negotiations, the criminal chamber announced further dates until the end of 2026, as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported. Starting on July 8th, 39 additional days of negotiations are planned. This means that the mammoth process could take a total of more than four years.

However, the criminal chamber does not assume that all of the scheduled dates will be needed before a decision is announced.

It remains unclear when the verdict will be handed down against the native Austrian. It has now become less likely that the process will end this year.

75 other witnesses

Braun’s defense attorney Theres Kraußlach submitted several applications for evidence at the beginning of May, BR24 reported. One of these applications lists 75 people who the lawyer is convinced still need to be heard as witnesses. Among them is ex-Wirecard board member and secret agent Jan Marsalek, who has been in hiding in Russia for almost six years. His appearance is de facto impossible.

In a further request for evidence, Braun’s defense attorney is calling for the Canadian online gambling mogul Calvin Ayre and the Norwegian investor Christen Ager-Hanssen to be summoned to the witness stand, according to BR24. According to Kraußlach’s conviction, the witnesses will “provide information that Dr. Braun was not involved in the criminal acts.” Because the gambling money from Ayre’s empire flowed through Wirecard.