For those who don't follow the company Wirecard, a brief intro. Wirecard was developed around 20 years ago to be some modern-age Paypal-like company, with accounts in far-flung locations and connected by your 'card' or device. An awful lot of people who looked at the development had the opinion that they were perfectly devised for money-laundering, but the company insisted on it's rules preventing that.
Around five years ago, some finance people looked at the numbers being published as 'profit', and had doubts. Around two years ago, that speculation grew. Finally, the German government (who had been doing audits on a regular basis).....now got serious. Toward the end 2018....an extensive audit was started. About six weeks ago....the audit revealed a shortfall of 1.9-billion Euro. In simple terms, the company was reporting the money existed in a bank in the Philippines. The bank when asked....said no, they had no such money.
Did the money ever exist? No one can cite factual data to say it ever existed. Did the company pay taxes on non-existent profits? Well, it appears so.
So the scandal brewing is that the head of the Finanzamt....SPD's Olaf Scholz (vice-Chancellor)....knew about the investigation over a year ago and never said a word in any conference or party dialog. Some members of the SPD are furious about the secrecy involved.
The accounting company....Ernst and Young are in the middle of this, because for years....they did audits of the company and signed off the books.
The Economics Minister (Altmier) is also in the middle of this because he was advocating the company at various times.
Chancellor Merkel? She gets dragged in because she tried to hype the company to the Chinese in 2019.
What's at stake? Bavaria (where the investigation is going on) says around 3-billion Euro is at risk from company loans, if they fold up entirely.
At the end of this whole episode, you have to wonder who exactly Wirecard was buying interest in.....within the CDU-CSU-SPD government. Or were these political folks wined and dined....having zero interest in the Wirecard business but just playing along for the weekend hotels and travel benefits?
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