After yesterday’s chat with Dan McCrum of The Monetary Occasions who broke the Wirecard story, wrote the guide about it, helped create the documentary on Netflix and is an all spherical good man, I puzzled no matter occurred to the important thing instigator, organiser and mastermind behind the fraud, Jan Marsalek.

Dan: It did really feel fairly harmful as a result of we’d began to comprehend that a minimum of one of many guys concerned had some very harmful pals.

Chris: That is Jan Marsalek?

Dan: Sure, that is Jan Marsalek, the chief working officer. After Wirecard collapsed, he was allowed to flee the nation and went to Belarus. He has, for a very long time, been in Moscow in accordance with varied pretty good studies and the newest we’ve heard is that he’s popped up in Dubai.

Surprisingly sufficient and coincidentally, I discovered a German newspaper speaking about Marsalek simply similtaneously interviewing Dan. They suppose he lives in Moscow, impersonating a priest.

The ZDF paper claims that he had been allegedly spying for Moscow’s secret providers for years, could be very related with key gamers in Russia and was an instrument for them in constructing the worldwide Wirecard scandal. However when the Home of Wirecard’s got here tumbling down, the place did he go?

Analysis by ZDF frontal , ” Spiegel “, the Austrian ” Customary ” and the Russian investigative platform ” The Insider ” now reveal that, in September 2020, Marsalek assumed the duvet id of a Russian Orthodox priest named Konstantin Bajazow. Individuals near the Russian secret providers helped him get his new passport. And the connections return a lot additional.

Equally, their investigations have discovered that Marsalek didn’t truly change into a priest, however that his new id is not utterly invented both. The truth is, an actual priest named Konstantin Bayazov lives within the Russian metropolis of Lipetsk, southeast of Moscow. He seems much like Marsalek, and their start dates are solely a 12 months aside.

There’s tons extra concerning the intrigue and actions of Marsalek over right here (in German), however what appears unimaginable is how such an operation may have been created, sustained and operated with out suspicion for therefore a few years (till McCrum uncovered the entire thing). Greater than this, it makes you marvel about the entire world of subterfuge and secret providers. Taking into consideration the numerous rumours of novochik poisoning  – the newest being remoured to be Alexi Navalny – I am shocked Dan did not stroll round very day with a private meals and low taster … or perhaps he did!

Thoughts you, speaking about subterfuge and cover-ups, I’ve simply completed watching the collection The Dropout, about Elizabeth Holmes in America who created a multibillion greenback firm, Theranos, that had buyers from Larry Ellison to George Shultz. She appeared to have loads going for her till a whistleblower helped The Wall Avenue Journal convey her down. It turned out that, beneath the floor, her firm had zero integrity or credibility.

Nothing surprises me and thank goodness for investigative journalism.