The confessed co-defendant Oliver Bellenhaus had manipulated and lied, said the defendant Stephan von Erffa on Wednesday before the Munich Regional Court. "He is good at lying and distorting." Bellenhaus felt hatred towards him because he had regularly requested accounting documents from the manager at the time. As these did not exist, Bellenhaus had falsified them.
"He was a slob," said Erffa. That's why he never had the impression that Bellenhaus was conspicuous. "Everything simply came too late." He certainly had the impression that Bellenhaus had rendered outstanding services to Wirecard, first at the company headquarters near Munich and later as a representative in Dubai. However, Bellenhaus was more of a shirt-sleeved "sales guy" than a "diligent banker". Bellenhaus had stated that he had falsified documents on the instructions of Erffa according to the ideas of the group headquarters.
The DAX-listed Wirecard group collapsed in 2020 when it was discovered that 1.9 billion euros were missing from trust accounts in Asia. The public prosecutor's office speaks of fraud, balance sheet falsification, market manipulation and breach of trust. Erffa's co-defendants, former CEO Markus Braun and Bellenhaus, accuse each other. While Bellenhaus speaks of joint forgeries, Braun rejects the accusations: the missing billions were embezzled by Bellenhaus and the board member Jan Marsalek, who has gone into hiding.
Erffa broke his silence on Wednesday after more than a year and a half. He said that he had reported to the CFO and had had little contact with Braun and Marsalek. "In my eyes, Dr. Braun had something unapproachable as a manager," Erffa said. "I had the feeling that Dr. Braun was very far removed from the operational business." He only turned to Marsalek when his subordinate Bellenhaus failed to deliver receipts to the accounting department on time or at all.
(Report by Jörn Poltz, edited by Philipp Krach. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)
