The FT journalist who exposed Wirecard’s billions as fake – and how the German regulators tried to blacken his name instead of investigating the multi-million pound fraud

FT Graphic

The FT journalist who exposed Wirecard’s billions as fake – and how the German regulators tried to blacken his name instead of investigating the multi-million pound fraud

ICSM Credit have previously documented the collapse of Wirecard AG, the German payment processor and financial services provider who left Commerzbank and other lenders with €3.2bn in unpaid invoices.

The Financial Time’s journalist Dan McCrum spent four years piecing together the evidence to show the firm simply ‘cooked the books’ and pulled the wool over the eyes of The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) - the financial regulatory authority for Germany.

“BaFin showed themselves to be incompetent,” said Ian Carrotte of ICSM Credit, “as they believed the corrupt German crooks who ran Wirecard and not the British journalists. Those crooks tried hard to intimidate the Financial Times and its reporters by making threats and running fake news stories about them in the German press. When the FT finally published all the evidence Wirecard crashed into insolvency, its main executives were arrested on fraud charges and are now in jail.”

Founded in 1999 Wirecard AG offered electronic payment transaction services, risk management, and issued and processed physical and virtual cards. As of 2017, the company was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and was a part of the DAX stock index.

Ian Carrotte said it showed no business was too big to fail as Wirecard was valued at £20bn in 2015 but admitted £1.9bn had 'gone missing' this year resulting in its demise. The firm employed 5,300 people around the world.

“The FT showed that good honest financial journalism was more than a match for Wirecard and BaFin,” Carrotte continued, “and suppliers to any big financial institution must treat them as any other company and run credit checks on them with ICSM Credit and follow business news in general. Questions were raised back in 2015 on Wirecard and anyone with any sense would have put them on stop then.”

The full story can be read here: https://www.ft.com/content/745e34a1-0ca7-432c-b062-950c20e41f03?sharetype=blocked

About ICSM Credit

ICSM Credit has more than four decades of experience as a credit intelligence group whose members gain inside information about firms in trouble allowing them to avoid bad debts and rogue traders. To join costs less than a tank of fuel - while at the moment there's a special free temporary membership offer during the Covid-19 crisis which gives access to free legal letters. ICSM also has an effective debt collecting service which has a global reach - ask for details from Paul.

For details about ICSM Credit call 0844 854 1850 or visit the website www.icsmcredit.com or email Ian at Ian.carrotte@icsmcredit.com on how to subscribe and to join the UK’s credit intelligence network to avoid bad debts and late payers. Follow ICSM Credit on FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube and Ian Carrotte on LinkedIn.

To keep up to date subscribe to the FREE ICSM Credit Newsletter to hear all the latest insolvency news and to see who has gone out of business click on the orange panel on the top left of the home page of the website www.icsmcredit.com or send an email to Ian.carrotte@icsmcredit.com

For details for the work of the journalist Harry Mottram visit www.harrymottram.co.uk


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