Exclusive

Housing market Tax tricks with Interest settlements

Status: 06/17/2021 10:42 a.m.

Financial investors speculate with billions on the German housing market, but hardly pay taxes – thanks to a legal trick. The federal government wanted to close this loophole. But loud monitor – Research won’t come of it.

By Lutz Polanz and Jan Schmitt, WDR

“Behind this house is an American company, the trail of the owners leads via Luxembourg to the Cayman Islands” , tells Coni Pfeiffer, activist and spokeswoman for the # 200Houses network. Tenants from Berlin have come together to defend themselves against the conversion of their apartments into expensive condominiums and the greed of financial corporations. It is similar with the other houses on the opposite side, explains Pfeiffer. Here the trail of investors leads to tax havens such as Gibraltar or the Virgin Islands. The Berlin real estate market has long since become an Eldorado for major investors who want to remain anonymous. The official owners are companies with names such as Magenta Properties S.à.rl or Berlin Project-1 Property III S.à.rl The names often conceal complex corporate structures with a whole chain of companies. In the end, they lead to well-known tax havens, for example in the Caribbean.

Interest trick to save taxes

The elaborate company structures apparently also serve to avoid paying taxes to the German tax authorities. A completely legal interest trick helps the companies: The parent companies lend money to their subsidiaries who own the houses and land in Germany. In return, they charge them high internal interest rates – much higher than they would otherwise have to pay at banks. The interest payments of the subsidiaries reduce the profit in Germany and thus the taxes that would have to be paid here.

“The profits go to countries in which no tax is levied on interest income”, explains Gerhard Schick, board member of “Citizens’ Movement Finanzwende”. “Thanks to these high interest payments, it is practically possible to push the income abroad, so that in Germany you can tell the tax office that we have actually not earned any money, but that the profit is generated abroad.”

Billions are being lost to the Treasury

“Every year the German state loses five to seven billion euros as a result of the interest rate trick”, adds Christoph Trautvetter from “Network tax justice”.

So far, the tax authorities have been able to do next to nothing about it. There is no corresponding legal regulation. Specialists have been calling for them for years, for example Manfred Naumann, an expert in international tax law and head of department in the Federal Ministry of Finance for many years: “I am frustrated that the legislature and the Federal Ministry of Finance are unable to find such a regulation”, said Naumann in an interview with the ARD -Magazine monitor . For him the state wears one “complicity” because financial resources run into the billions “flow untaxed”. Proposals for such a regulation have long been on the table. Accordingly, the interest rate would always be used as a benchmark at which a group can borrow money from the bank. Demanding higher interest rates internally would only be possible if the group can justify it well. That would be a kind of reversal of the burden of proof, which experts believe would prevent a large part of the tax damage.

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The Federal Ministry of Finance under Olaf Scholz (SPD) had proposed precisely such a new regulation in a draft law. But the CDU / CSU parliamentary group intervened and the corresponding passage was deleted from the draft. The Federal Council then made a new attempt to resume the regulation. But this was also thrown out at the instigation of the Union.

“Braking measures against money laundering, aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion by the CDU / CSU has a long tradition”, criticizes Sven Giegold from the Greens in the European Parliament. However, he is also surprised that the SPD did not protest against it.

The Union faction wanted to get up monitor -Do not answer the request. The Federal Ministry of Finance, led by Scholz, is now apparently at a distance from its original approach. Corresponding changes “should ideally be coordinated internationally”, it says in a response from the ministry to a request from monitor .

Now the match ball lies with the Federal Council. He wants to decide at the end of June whether to call the mediation committee or wave the law through with the loophole

Allegations against rapid test providers Incorrect billing, high material costs

Status: 14.06.2021 6:12 p.m.

The rapid test chain MediCan is said to have, among other things, billed medical services and estimated excessive material costs for the tests. Learned that NDR , WDR and SZ from judicial circles. By M. Grill, A. Henze, J. Lange, G. Mascolo, C. Basl and P. Milling, NDR / WDR The two heads of the MediCan rapid test chain have been in custody for more than a week. The Bochum public prosecutor’s office had issued arrest warrants against the owner Oguzhan C. and his son and managing director Sertac C. because they are said to have accounted for as medical centers, although they lacked the prerequisites for how WDR , NDR and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” learned from judicial circles. In addition, they are said to have charged the federal government for antigen tests at higher prices than they actually cost in purchasing. The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating the suspicion that the company billed a significantly higher number of tests with the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians than were actually carried out in the more than 50 centers. The suspected provisional damage amount is in the low double-digit million range, according to the assessment of the public prosecutor. One of the accused is represented by lawyer Reinhard Peters. As he announced on request, there was “an hour-long interrogation by the public prosecutor’s office” last Friday. Mr. C. Senior sticks: “All the tests that he billed have also been carried out.” Peters had no knowledge of the doctors previously mentioned in the MediCan’s legal notice – “as far as I know, according to the file, they have not yet been questioned”. Overall, Peters said of the allegations: “If there are reclaims here, then that will be reimbursed in full. That is no question at all.” His client did not try to disguise anything either, but made everything very open. “I just think that some things may have been misunderstood here. But I don’t see any intention of fraud behind this at all.”

Doctors who were almost never on site

Had only last week WDR , NDR and SZ reports how easy it makes the test regulation to charge excessive prices for rapid tests to the federal government .

06/04/2021

Until the MediCan case was uncovered, the imprint of the chain’s website also listed three medical professionals as “doctors responsible for carrying out the test and training staff”. Since then, the names of these doctors have disappeared. In principle, citizens’ tests that are carried out in rapid test centers under medical supervision can be charged three euros more per test than normal rapid test centers, whose remuneration is capped at 18 euros per test. All three MediCan doctors mentioned were employed full-time as plastic surgeons in a hospital in Lower Saxony, as the hospital confirmed on request, which did not know anything about the secondary activity of the employees. According to his own information, Dr. W. has been working for MediCan since December, Dr. P. and Dr. A. on the other hand only since April. Your task was to “answer telephone queries from the on-site staff,” as the clinic announced on behalf of the doctors. Dr. W. also carried out on-site staff training. He also checked on site every one to two weeks whether the hygiene regulations were being adhered to. “Messrs. Dr. P. and A. were never on site,” the clinic announced on request.

In future there will be no more differentiation in billing

It is not entirely clear whether and when test centers are allowed to charge the higher medical price for rapid tests. While the North Rhine Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians emphasizes that “a doctor must be physically on site” and the KV Berlin also states that a licensed physician “must be constantly present”, Roland Stahl, spokesman for the Federal Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, announces that the doctor will Smear sampling could be delegated, but had to be “mostly on site”.

06/10/2021

The Ministry of Health, in turn, takes the position that a rapid test center can only bill as a medical service provider if “the medical management is closely involved in the care and organizational structures”. It is “not absolutely necessary that the doctor is permanently physically present”. “At the same time, however, it is not sufficient if a test site is formally under medical supervision, for example because it is run by a higher-level company under medical supervision,” writes the department. Before the case became known, 54 test centers nationwide were listed on MediCan’s website, Oguzhan C. himself said that the company had 102 locations. It is noticeable that not only MediCan, but also many test providers advertise the names of doctors on their websites. It is unclear who also bills the higher rate as a medical service provider, especially since the statutory health insurance associations do not answer any questions about individual providers. The sums they pay out are ultimately taxpayers’ money.

There is also a security gap in MediCan

The Federal Ministry of Health wants to end this confusion with the new test regulation. In the future there should no longer be a difference between “the remuneration of medical and non-medical service providers”. In the future, both should only get eight euros for the test and a flat rate for the test material. Some test site operators such as Hamburg’s top dog Moritz Fürste are already complaining that they will then no longer be able to work profitably and will have to close their centers. On the LinkedIn platform, Fürste writes: “If I were to reduce it to eight euros, I would have no choice but to close everything.”

Exclusive 05/27/2021

At Medican there is also the fact that the company apparently also had data security problems. The full names, date of birth, email address and registration date of the customers could therefore be viewed with little effort. This emerges from a report by the IT security collective “Zerforschung” to the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the WDR , NDR and SZ is available. Accordingly, booking codes from customers were only available with the seven-digit time stamp of the registration. This made it possible to see the personal data of customers from May: “In short samples, more than 15 percent of the attempts were successful,” the report says. It was no longer possible to determine whether test results could also be viewed. MediCan’s lawyer confirmed that there was a data gap in the booking confirmations. The server is now offline. MediCan’s test centers no longer exist.

In the Declaration, Member States signed a commitment to “provide a safe and appropriate environment for journalists” and to “investigate, prosecute and punish threats and acts of violence” against to journalists. Marking the first session of UNGASS working in the field of prevention and combating corruption, the Declaration called for effective international cooperation and stronger preventive measures to protect reporting and denouncing parties. and fight against corruption. This statement highlights the role of law enforcement officials, prosecutors and the judiciary as key actors in anti-corruption law enforcement, promoting transparency and the rule of law. The declaration was welcomed by the G7 Ministers and the High Representative of the European Union, who issued a joint statement reaffirming the important role of civil society and the free media in combating corruption. . The G7 affirmed that it will “protect and promote the right of access to information for all citizens, including civil society organisations, media and journalists”. UNESCO contributed to a side event about the importance of protecting journalists and strengthening the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a watchdog monitoring Indicator 16.10.2, SDG 16 on ensuring public access to information and protecting fundamental freedoms, UNESCO has emphasized protecting and promoting the regulated press. investigation as an important part of the fight against corruption. “Investigative journalism and the press in general play an important role in bringing allegations and cases of corruption to light. Therefore, it is extremely important to ensure a safe and free environment. for journalists to assist it in uncovering corruption, money laundering to other organized crime.” – Mr. Guilherme Canela, Head of UNESCO’s Division of Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists UNESCO’s designation as a watchdog for SDG Target 16.10.2 has provided a key impetus for the organization to step up efforts to promote public access to information. Based on the monitoring results of SDG 16.10.2, UNESCO plays an important role in strengthening the United Nations’ support for the development of policies and laws on access to information, to protect the right to equal participation. equality as well as providing tools for civil society and the media, informing citizens, enhancing transparency of procurement, budgeting and many other areas of public life. In just four years, UNESCO has assisted 14 countries in passing Access to Information legislation. As a result, the public is informed to participate actively in public debates with decision-makers, including in the development of public policy and legislation. “Access to information allows citizens to obtain information held by public authorities, including the right to request and receive information, and the government’s obligation to proactively disclose information.” – Mr. Jaco du Toit, Head of UNESCO’s Global Access to Information Department Thông The Declaration of the 14th United Nations General Assembly on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice recognized the uniqueness of the threats facing journalists and called for global cooperation to change the situation. new to end immunity for crimes against journalists. To that effect, since 2013, UNESCO and its partners have trained more than 18,000 judicial authorities and 8,500 security forces on international and regional standards for freedom of expression, to promote promote a freer and safer environment for journalists and media workers around the world. Quynh Hoa According to UNESCO

From Massimo Bognanni, WDR The email that popped up on May 7, 2007 at 10:07 a.m. on the screen of an employee of the BaFin banking supervisory authority came from the world of big money. A whistleblower answered with confidential information, apparently from within the financial industry. The whistleblower sent BaFin a five-page document. Possibly, wrote the whistleblower, the banking supervisory authorities were interested. After all, it is about huge share deals that would have cost the German state hundreds of millions of euros in previous years. For many years, this entry was kept in the BaFin’s portfolio as a secret. She did not forward the notice to law enforcement officers or tax investigators. WDR , “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ) and the Dutch investigative platform “Follow The Money” (FTM) were now able to view the relevant BaFin documents. A picture of a banking supervisory authority comes to light, which apparently could be fobbed off with the information of an affected financial institution. The financial overseers meanwhile in the criticism because of the Wirecard scandal , therefore also play a dubious role in the cum-ex tax scandal.

Could Cum-Ex have been discovered in 2007?

The notice from 2007 was even suitable to blow up the global cum-ex industry, which was still undiscovered at the time. An industry where bankers, stock traders, and advisors used complex stock deals to recover taxes that no one had paid before. Their booty is estimated at ten billion euros – just at German tax money . Billions that the state urgently needed in recent years for schools, daycare centers, health and social care, for modern infrastructure, affordable housing and much more. Specifically, the whistleblower stabbed through details in 2007 about alleged cum-ex deals, in which the then powerful and scandalous North Rhine-Westphalian state bank WestLB is said to have been involved. A document in English from inside the Belgian-Dutch Fortis Bank was attached to the mail as evidence. In the internal report, the WDR , SZ and FTM are available, the statement of a Fortis employee is documented. The Fortis banker described transactions with which a tax could be reimbursed twice that had only been paid once. As an example, he cited a billion-euro share deal from 2004, in which those involved in Germany would have had taxes of around 100 million euros reimbursed. The NRW-Landesbank WestLB, to which taxes were ultimately paid, played an important role. The “profit” was shared among those involved: WestLB collected ten million euros itself, Fortis 60 million euros, and intermediary financial firms around 30 million euros. What he put on record with detailed knowledge and a diagram was the first concrete report of an alleged cum-ex case.

BaFin contacted the accused instead of the authorities

BaFin seemed to take the petition seriously. A supervisor noted in handwriting on the printed whistleblower email that the management had been informed. In an initial assessment, the BaFin experts stated that it could be tax evasion. But instead of involving the public prosecutor or tax investigators, BaFin informed: WestLB. In the letter dated May 11, 2007, a BaFin auditor turned to the state bank that information had been provided anonymously to him. Paragraphs from the Fortis internal report were also included. The Landesbanker learned that the clues had to come from inside Fortis – an explosive detail for a bank that might have something to hide.

This is how cum-ex and cum-cum deals work At Cum-cum In business, a domestic bank helps a foreign investor get a tax refund that the foreign investor is not entitled to. The profit is shared.
Cum-Ex -Businesses are related, but far more complicated. The specialty: a tax is paid once and reclaimed several times by the tax authorities. So a network of banks, consultants, lawyers and wealthy investors had taxes reimbursed that were never paid.

WestLB reassured BaFin

Two weeks later, WestLB gave the all-clear. The facts have been examined. Legally, they see no problems, and moreover, they have found evidence of transactions that could be classified as cum-cum transactions that are less criminally critical. A sedative pill poured in lines, as it seems today. The BaFin swallowed it – the case was apparently closed for the supervisors. On request, BaFin confirmed that the information had been “taken up by the responsible specialist department”. However, at that time the passing on of information “to other authorities, especially tax authorities” was not allowed because of the confidentiality obligations of the Banking Act. According to BaFin, this only became possible in 2015 through a change in the law. The public prosecutor’s office in Cologne, currently involved in countless cum-ex proceedings, strongly contradicts this. There is a duty of confidentiality for alleged tax evaders “neither currently nor has it existed in the past”. There were no relevant changes to the law in 2015, as a spokesman announced. Confronted with the clear announcement from Cologne, BaFin remains silent.

Investigations only nine years later

The fact that there were investigations into the WestLB and Cum-Ex matters was due to the purchase of a so-called tax CD years later. In 2015, the NRW Ministry of Finance bought the information from another Cum-Ex-Insider for five million euros. Among the banks listed there: WestLB. Nine years after the information from the BaFin whistleblower, the Düsseldorf public prosecutor initiated investigations against former WestLB board members. She recently handed over the procedure to Cologne, where it continues to this day. The tax authorities are one step further in the WestLB case. The Düsseldorf tax office demanded from the legal successor of the now insolvent WestLB, the Portigon, back tax money of more than 450 million euros because of the entanglement in cum-ex deals . Portigon has lodged an objection – and tries to pass some of the costs on to the processing company EEA. On request, Portigon stated: “Without the means and options available only to the public prosecutor and tax investigators, it was neither in 2007 nor today for WestLB or Portigon whether it was a critical transaction.”

Ministry of Finance: Events have been dealt with

The Federal Ministry of Finance considers the whistleblower events of 2007 to have already been “processed” by the Cum-Ex investigation committee. In fact, in 2017 the then Green MP Gerhard Schick brought the relevant documents to the committee. But even there they were classified as “trade secrets” – and their explosive content was never made public. Schick, meanwhile board member of the non-governmental organization “Finanzwende”, is relieved that the events of 2007 are still public: “It was hard to bear how long BaFin could publicly claim that it could not have done anything. That was grossly misleading the public.” The obligation of secrecy for these documents in the committee of inquiry would have protected people who had failed miserably, “be it in the financial supervision or in the committees of WestLB”.

By Johannes Edelhoff, Sebastian Friedrich, Markus Grill and Johannes Jolmes NDR, WDR The notice in the Amazon warehouse in Winsen an der Luhe was clear: A green tick was attached to the surgical mask, while the FFP2 mask was crossed out in red. In February, Amazon informed the employees with this notice that only medical disposable masks, also known as “surgical masks”, were allowed to be worn. Research by NDR , WDR and “Süddeutscher Zeitung” point out that nothing has changed in this practice. The ARD magazine Panorama there is another similar notice from April, as well as statements from affected employees. In fact, this practice has not yet violated any applicable regulations or laws, as surgical masks are also allowed. Ivonne Hasch worked at Amazon in Winsen, a good 30 kilometers south of Hamburg, until mid-April. “I would have preferred to wear an FFP2 mask because it offers more protection than a surgical mask,” she says. Hasch spoke to her supervisor about FFP2 masks. He said that these were forbidden so that employees would not have to be given an additional break. In fact, according to a recommendation by the German Social Accident Insurance, FFP2 masks should be worn for a maximum of 75 minutes to two hours at a time, depending on the severity of the work, followed by a 30-minute mask-free time. In the case of light physical activity, it can also be worn for three hours. Amazon does not want to comment specifically on the ban. On request, the group would like to point out that only medical masks are available. Amazon emphasizes, however, that all employees are provided with surgical masks that are “of high quality” free of charge. In addition, Amazon allows “occasional exceptions when employees apply for them”.

Frequent breaks – higher costs

In the Leipzig logistics center, Amazon does at least allow employees to wear FFP2 masks that they have brought with them. For both these and the surgical masks, the management offers employees a half-hour mask-free break after two hours of work – albeit unpaid, as Thomas Rigol, chairman of the works council at Amazon’s Leipzig location, in panorama reported. “The hours are deducted from the overtime account.” Because this leads to considerable negative hours in the long run, the employees hardly use this break. Amazon also confirms the 30-minute unpaid break. “For the type of masks that are offered by Amazon, no additional breaks are necessary, according to the reliable findings of occupational physicians and the publications of the German statutory accident insurance,” said Amazon. The research shows that in other sectors – such as retail or industry – the FFP2 mask is only reluctantly used on a large scale. Apparently because compliance with the mask-free time would lead to higher costs. This was confirmed by several union and retail representatives. In principle, employees in companies are not entitled to higher quality FFP2 masks. Minister Hubertus Heil’s occupational health and safety ordinance provides for a mask requirement in companies under certain conditions – surgical masks are currently sufficient to meet these requirements. A mask is currently required if less than ten square meters are available per employee, the minimum distance of 1.5 meters is not maintained and the room is poorly ventilated. If all of this is not the case, one can work in offices without a mask at all. Heil did not want to answer questions on this topic in front of a camera due to lack of time. Upon request, a spokeswoman said that the Ministry of Labor currently sees no reason for a general FFP2 obligation in the workplace. The current rules have only just been expanded.

Amazon is one of the beneficiaries of the pandemic

The SPD health expert Karl Lauterbach condemns the practice of Amazon as “unjustifiable” and “unethical”. Lauterbach asks in an interview with panorama an FFP2 obligation in companies if aerosol transmission is likely. These regulations are also a much better alternative for the companies, because maybe one day we will get to the point “where we will have to close the companies for a while”. Professor Klaus Dörre describes Amazon’s handling of health protection as scandalous. The work and industrial sociologist from the University of Jena has dealt intensively with the company and its employment model. Amazon only considers Dörre to be the tip of the iceberg. “Overall, we have a lot of carelessness in the company.” In fact, after the first wave in manufacturing companies, business simply continued. This has led to a two-tier society among employees, said Dörre. “Some sit in the home office and others are forced to be present on a daily basis. And one would expect at least those to enjoy the best possible protection.”

How well do FFP2 masks actually protect?

How much higher the protective effect of the FFP2 masks is compared to the surgical masks has not been conclusively clarified. Professor Holger Schünemann also refers to this. The epidemiologist at McMaster University in Canada is director of the WHO “Collaborating Center for Infectious Diseases, Research Methods and Recommendations”. He says that FFP2 masks can protect twice as well as surgical masks, but it always depends on how many infected people there are. “If the risk of infection in a company without a mask is ten percent on a day, then – according to the conservative assumption – surgical masks would reduce that to perhaps seven percent. An FFP2 mask might reduce the risk to four percent. ” If there is a high risk of infection in the company, wearing FFP2 masks could make sense. The German Society for Hospital Hygiene, on the other hand, is skeptical of the FFP2 masks. An FFP2 mask that doesn’t fit properly, i.e. where you breathe out from the side, does not provide any better protection than a surgical mask. SPD health expert Lauterbach does not convince this position. It does not correspond to what international professional societies present.

By Arne Meyer-Fünffinger and Josef Streule, BR At the end of March 2014, the mood between Wirecard and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) was dazzling. Wirecard Bank AG, which belongs to the group, has just solved a problem for the BKA – in connection with an account that the bank set up on behalf of the authority. “I would like to thank you expressly and cordially, in particular ‘that’ and ‘how quickly’ you were able to implement the whole thing,” wrote an employee of the BKA department “Serious and Organized Crime” by email to the general manager at the time the Wirecard Bank.

Wirecard: “We will become the BKA house bank”

The latter forwards the BKA thank you email to a board of directors on the same day. In addition, he writes, “We have 2 more BKA accounts”. The board of directors replied immediately and with great satisfaction: “Great – thank you very much! We will become the BKA house bank.” The e-mails are part of an extensive data set of internal Wirecard documents, the BR research could see. It shows: The BKA has maintained a close cooperation with the now insolvent payment service provider for years.

The special investigator Wieland is sharply critical of the BKA’s actions. Image: picture alliance / dpa / dpa-Zentral The former Green Bundestag member and interior expert Wolfgang Wieland took a closer look at the cooperation in his function as investigative officer for the Wirecard investigative committee. In the previously unpublished paper that BR research is available, he comes to the conclusion, among other things, that the BKA must put up with the question of whether it should not have “as an authority to combat money laundering and organized crime should have examined its partners more critically”. Instead, the BKA “made the buck to the gardener,” writes Wieland.

Wirecard issued credit cards for the BKA

The Federal Criminal Police Office chose Wirecard Bank to use credit cards to monitor suspects. In February 2014, for example, a BKA official approached the management of Wirecard Bank with the following request: “We would like to give a target person an originally sealed mywirecard VISA as a ‘gift’ so that they can use the card diligently. […] As soon as the card on surveillance is used, a corresponding data record with the information is sent directly to the law enforcement agency. “Since the target person is very suspicious, this card must be handed over to her in its original packaging.

Trusted exchange for years

At the BKA, the trust in the company is apparently so great that the authority inaugurates Wirecard in search concepts. In January 2014 she sent a fax to those responsible at the bank. The BKA investigators want to explain the “E-Cash” search concept to Wirecard: “For this purpose, we have already agreed business processes with various headends and companies (…). From our point of view, it would be a good idea to discuss this matter with you (gladly at your house) to explain in more detail. ”

Good and uncomplicated cooperation

At the same time, Wirecard always tried to make the BKA’s work as easy and inexpensive as possible. The company reimbursed the authority for any account management fees or credit card usage fees that were normally incurred. A board member of Wirecard Bank is pleased that Wirecard managers were able to gain insight into account movements from undercover investigations. He wants to be informed about account balances, “then at least I can see what’s going on on the account,” he wrote in an email in June 2014. Danyal Bayaz, Member of the Bundestag for the Greens and member of the Wirecard investigation committee, is critical of the cooperation: “At a scandalous company like Wirecard, where a board member himself had contacts to Russia, Libya or former security officials from Austria, who knows what with this data happened, and of course that’s a huge problem. ”

Cooperation with the BKA as “image polish”

According to the report by investigative officer Wieland, the group’s cooperation with the BKA “came as it was called” – “in the image polishing away from porn and gaming financiers to serious partners in politics and in particular actors from the security sector”. The cooperation is apparently practical for the BKA. Shortly before Christmas 2015, the authority thanked Wirecard: “We look forward to continued good cooperation in 2016 too.” And it runs for years. According to Wieland’s assessment, in the area of ​​operational management alone, BKA confidants “in the period from 2014-2020 made about 33% of all operational credit card sales with Wirecard”. The business conduct of Wirecard has long been the subject of criticism, and since 2015 there have been investigations against Wirecard officials on the grounds of “suspicion of money laundering” or “aiding in unauthorized gambling”. For Thomas Feltes, long-time professor of criminology at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, it is incomprehensible that the BKA has cooperated with Wirecard for so long: “At the latest from a certain point in time when the BKA knew or could have known that Wirecard did not have everything If things are done right, you should have pulled the rip cord. ”

The federal government is keeping silent about the BKA cooperation

In retrospect, this close relationship between the BKA and Wirecard appears to be uncomfortable for the federal government. This is at least the impression made by the internal communication between the Chancellery and several ministries shortly after the Wirecard collapse in June 2020. At that time, the Green parliamentary group submitted a comprehensive catalog of questions to the federal government. In it, she wants to know, among other things, whether Wirecard AG or one of its subsidiaries “advised, supported or otherwise worked with the authorities”. The Federal Chancellery then asks the individual departments to deliver. The Federal Ministry of the Interior, as the BKA supervisory authority, reports to the Chancellery about the cooperation between the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Wirecard Bank. But the experts in the Chancellery come to the conclusion that “the mere use of bank accounts or credit cards” does not involve any cooperation with Wirecard “in the sense of the question”. And so the answer sent on August 10, 2020 is: “The Federal Government is not aware of any collaborations.” The Green politician Bayaz calls for a comprehensive clarification of this process: “If we know today that German security authorities have used credit cards via Wirecard, for example, the question naturally arises, have any possible security interests of the Federal Republic of Germany been violated? This is a highly explosive process. And now all the cards have to be on the table. ” Neither the Federal Criminal Police Office nor the Federal Ministry of the Interior wanted to comment on the incident. The Chancellery referred to the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The Wirecard investigation committee of the Bundestag will deal with the report of the investigative commissioner Wieland on Thursday.

By Marilina Görz y Moratalla, SWR, and Jan-Philipp Hein The counter-espionage of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is said to have so far found no evidence that the fugitive former Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek was tied to Russian intelligence services. However, the search continues. That writes the special investigator of the Wirecard investigation committee, the former Berlin Justice Senator Wolfgang Wieland (Greens), in his investigation report, the SWR is present. At the end of November, the committee of inquiry commissioned Wieland to deal specifically with the contacts of the former DAX group with secret services. In his report, Wieland also mentions that Marsalek’s colleague on the board, Susanne Steidl, reported to the Munich public prosecutor that Marsalek had “requested and received a complete annual data set of Wirecard business partners to be forwarded to the BND”. The Wieland paper does not reveal what kind of data it was about. But: The BND excludes “verifiably” from ever having received it. For Wieland, therefore, the question arises who received it instead.

The special investigator Wieland does not feel adequately informed by the federal government. Image: picture alliance / dpa / dpa-Zentral A spokesman for Steidl says this SWR– Inquiry: “The BND was a customer like many others.” Therefore, the process from summer 2019 was not unusual. It was also anonymous data, such as can be bought from other service providers. To this day, Steidl does not know what Marsalek did with the data.

“Ignorance of the intelligence services”

Shortly after the collapse of the then DAX group in the early summer of last year – this is also shown by documents supporting the SWR are available – the Federal Chancellery and various security authorities began investigating Wirecard and the fleeting top manager Marsalek after inquiries from the press and parliament. Shortly after his disappearance, he was said to have had close relationships with Russian secret services. But neither the BND nor the Office for the Protection of the Constitution want Marsalek and Wirecard to be on their radar. “As a result, the ignorance of the intelligence services was confirmed by June 2020,” writes Wieland. The fact that Marsalek is repeatedly associated with Russia is due to the fact that he pursued a large number of projects and businesses there and traveled there very often. In 2017 and 2018 he also tried to start a project in Libya together with a professor of Arabic studies from Moscow, a high-ranking officer in the Austrian Armed Forces and a German refugee expert. In addition, his escape with a private jet via Belarusian Minsk is said to have finally led him to Russia itself. The secret service expert and historian Wolfgang Krieger from the Philipps University in Marburg says: “Jan Marsalek does not get protection from Russia for free. It is very likely that he received protection for financial espionage.”

Wirecard worked together with the BKA

Several units of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) worked together with the later scandal group, whose bankruptcy has grown into one of the largest criminal cases in German history. From 2013, online criminals were to be convicted with the help of the Group’s own Wirecard bank. The bank also made credit cards available for this purpose. Later, the BKA turned to the group “in order to obtain information about the whereabouts of known or unknown perpetrators in real time when developing new search approaches with the help of data from credit cards,” Wieland writes in his report. For Wieland, the fact that the report leaves many questions unanswered in spite of everything is also due to the lack of cooperation and willingness to provide information on the part of the federal government and the Bavarian state government. Information is blocked to this day due to ongoing criminal investigations. The Bavarian Ministry of Justice did not even send confirmations of receipt in response to inquiries. The SPD MP Jens Zimmermann from the Wirecard committee also criticizes this: “The fact that the Bavarian Ministry of Justice did not respond to the request for support from the investigative committee’s special investigator casts a bad but telling picture of the lack of willingness to provide information in Bavaria.”

Ex-top secret service agent in front of the committee

Wieland will present an expanded version of his report to the committee of inquiry on Thursday morning. Immediately afterwards, two former intelligence coordinators from the Chancellery have to testify before the committee. Klaus-Dieter Fritsche, who was responsible for the secret services at the government headquarters from 2014 to 2018, signed a consulting contract with Wirecard in 2019. Until 2020, Fritsche lobbied for the group at its old place of work. In 2019, a department head of the Chancellery met a Wirecard board member. According to Fritsche, Bernd Schmidbauer, who worked under Helmut Kohl in the Chancellery from 1991 to 1998, must testify. Schmidbauer admitted in February that he had met Marsalek about two years ago in his Munich property. In addition, Schmidbauer was in contact for years with one of Marsalek’s escape helpers, a former chief constitutional protection officer from Austria. The FDP chairman Florian Toncar has high hopes for the interrogations of the two ex-top secret service agents. The whole complex around Wirecard and the intelligence services has been “underexposed” so far, says Toncar. It is “worrying” that foreign intelligence services apparently got involved with Wirecard. Toncar calls the fact that the company was used as a “money laundering machine” for the interests of the Russian government or to pay mercenaries in Libya or Syria or to circumvent sanctions, “says Toncar,” hypotheses that the facts point to. ” Addition from April 14th, 2021: According to its own account, the Bavarian Ministry of Justice “transmitted” the information requested by the investigative officer Wieland. These were received by him today at noon. Confirmations of receipt, according to a spokeswoman, “are generally not sent by the Bavarian Ministry of Justice”. Therefore, the allegations made against the Bavarian government are incorrect.