According to media reports, the former Wirecard board member Marsalek is said to have worked for Russian secret services for years. They are said to have supported him in his escape. Politicians are calling for the appointment of a special investigator.
Corresponding allegations have been around for a long time – now there is new evidence that the former Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek is said to have been active for Russian secret services for years. As the “Spiegel”, ZDF, the Austrian “Standard” and the Russian platform “The Insider” report, the ex-manager who went into hiding is said to have established close contacts with the Russian military intelligence service GRU and members of the Duma through a confidant from 2014 onwards. The media relies, among other things, on Western intelligence information.
Intelligence activities in several countries?
According to Austrian investigation files, Marsalek was part of an “intelligence cell whose capacities and capabilities were used by Russian intelligence services.” According to reports, British prosecutors accuse Marsalek of having controlled a ring of agents in London as late as 2023.
“The research suggests that Marsalek used his own networks to spy on people in Europe who were unpopular with the Kremlin and may have transmitted sensitive information to Russia,” says the ZDF report. Journalists living in Europe, for example, were affected.
“For years, as a board member of a DAX company, he apparently built up a spy network undisturbed,” writes “Spiegel”. Marsalek is also said to have been in Syria with Wagner mercenaries in May 2017, where they fought against jihadists together with Russian and Syrian troops.
As the media continues to report, Russian authorities are said to have helped Marsalek assume a new identity after his escape in 2020. Marsalek posed as a Russian Orthodox priest in Crimea in September 2020. Marsalek’s lawyer did not comment on the allegations. A spokesman for the federal government said he could not provide any information about the case.
Politicians demand consequences
In response to the allegations against Marsalek, the chairman of the Parliamentary Control Committee (PKGr), Konstantin von Notz (Greens), called for a special investigator to be appointed. The research very likely showed that “this is a Russian espionage influence operation, and I could well imagine that they would try to get to the bottom of these questions with a special investigator,” von Notz told ZDF.
The deputy PKGr chairman Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU) was convinced that Marsalek had been a Russian agent for years: “It gives the impression that this is a broad-based Russian intelligence operation,” said Kiesewetter on ZDF. Wirecard was designed to “obtain information and, on the other hand, to specifically disrupt trust in the financial market.”
The federal government kept a low profile. “As a general rule, the federal government does not comment publicly on matters that concern any intelligence findings or activities of the intelligence services,” said a government spokesman. “This does not make any statement as to whether the facts are correct or not.”
Marsalek has been on the run since the payment company Wirecard went bankrupt in June 2020 and is believed to be in Russia. The Wirecard insolvency is considered one of the biggest economic scandals in the Federal Republic of Germany.