Ex-Wirecard manager

Marsalek received identity of priest in Moscow

In 2020, Russian intelligence services provided former Wirecard board member Jan Marsalek, who is wanted worldwide for embezzling billions of euros, with the identity of a priest who looks like him. A Russian woman with whom Marsalek had already traveled to Chechnya in 2013 is said to have played a key role in this.

According to a "Standard" report, Austrian investigators classify two ex-BVT officials with contacts to Marsalek as an "intelligence cell" for Russia. Marsalek's connection to Russian intelligence services began in 2013, writes the newspaper, which investigated the case together with "Spiegel", ZDF and the Russian internet news site "The Insider".

At the time, the then Wirecard board member was negotiating a deal with the Moscow Metro transport company in Russia. A Russian businessman had provided him with a young woman with an eventful past and allegedly good connections to the administration of the Russian capital.

Russian acquaintance as key figure
Natalija S. is said to have previously played an agent in a "sex film" who killed victims with nerve gas. Together with S., Marsalek then traveled to Chechnya in 2013 to meet relatives of the local potentate Ramzan Kadyrov. According to APA information, this research was made possible in particular by a major leak of Russian flight data.

At the celebrations for S.'s 30th birthday in Nice in 2014, Marsalek finally met an ex-elite soldier named Stanislaw P., who handed the ex-Wirecard manager over to the Russian military intelligence service GRU.

Did the ex-banker run a spy ring?
After Marsalek fled to the East in the summer of 2020, Natalija S. then went on holiday to a wellness hotel in Russia-occupied Crimea in the autumn of 2020 with a Russian Orthodox priest who looked "strikingly similar" to Marsalek. The ex-banker is also said to have subsequently led a spy ring that allegedly even planned kidnappings and even assassinations in Europe, the newspaper writes.

Were ex-BVT officials spying for Moscow?
However, it was also previously unknown that Austrian investigators have now assigned two former BVT officials to a "cell" that allegedly leaked secrets on behalf of Marsalek and sabotaged their own employer. According to the report, intelligence information from the BVT and from Western partner services ended up on the banker's desk. Both ex-officials have denied allegations in this regard in the past.