1 00:00:06,105 --> 00:00:06,985 [phone rings] 2 00:00:07,825 --> 00:00:12,745 [man in German] In Autumn 2019, I got a call from a source. 3 00:00:14,145 --> 00:00:17,065 He asks me, "Have you ever looked into Wirecard?" 4 00:00:18,945 --> 00:00:20,625 "The payment processor? No." 5 00:00:22,705 --> 00:00:24,545 "It's a very strange company." 6 00:00:24,625 --> 00:00:26,825 "Companies are being set up." 7 00:00:26,905 --> 00:00:29,625 "Money comes in, money goes out." 8 00:00:30,905 --> 00:00:32,745 That is totally spooky. 9 00:00:34,225 --> 00:00:38,545 He'd been called by foreign friends 10 00:00:38,625 --> 00:00:42,025 who used to work in intelligence agencies, 11 00:00:42,105 --> 00:00:43,545 and they warned him, 12 00:00:44,145 --> 00:00:46,185 "Are you interested in Wirecard?" 13 00:00:46,265 --> 00:00:47,825 "Keep your hands off it." 14 00:00:47,905 --> 00:00:49,905 [tense music plays] 15 00:00:55,065 --> 00:00:57,145 [reporter 1 in English] Scandal involving a German 16 00:00:57,225 --> 00:00:59,265 digital payments company, Wirecard. 17 00:01:01,065 --> 00:01:03,585 [reporter 2 in German] Mr. Braun, reports about your business 18 00:01:03,665 --> 00:01:06,225 read like a financial thriller. 19 00:01:06,305 --> 00:01:09,465 [reporter 1 in English] How do you simply miss a couple of billion dollars? 20 00:01:09,545 --> 00:01:11,145 [reporter 2 in German] Bogus sales, 21 00:01:11,225 --> 00:01:13,065 balance sheet manipulations, many allegations. 22 00:01:13,145 --> 00:01:14,745 How bad is it going to get? 23 00:01:15,785 --> 00:01:18,825 [reporter 3 in English] Money laundering, gambling, porn, 24 00:01:19,545 --> 00:01:21,425 helping terrorist organizations. 25 00:01:22,465 --> 00:01:25,025 [man 1] It was the Financial Times versus Wirecard. 26 00:01:25,105 --> 00:01:28,145 -[camera shutter clicks] -They were trying to find information, 27 00:01:28,225 --> 00:01:30,785 and then Wirecard were trying to find information back. 28 00:01:31,465 --> 00:01:33,425 [man 2] It was a total deepfake. 29 00:01:33,945 --> 00:01:36,905 It looked like a bank, but it was actually a robbery. 30 00:01:38,465 --> 00:01:41,945 [reporter 4 in German] The former COO, Jan Marsalek, is on the run. 31 00:01:42,785 --> 00:01:45,465 [reporter 5] The biggest fraud scandal in German history. 32 00:01:47,225 --> 00:01:50,425 [reporter 6] There's an international manhunt for Jan Marsalek. 33 00:01:50,505 --> 00:01:53,225 [tense music continues] 34 00:01:55,465 --> 00:01:58,745 [woman] It's unbelievable how something like this can survive for so long. 35 00:01:59,745 --> 00:02:02,385 [man 3] It was clear to me this was going to be a huge story. 36 00:02:06,945 --> 00:02:09,425 [tense music ends] 37 00:02:12,825 --> 00:02:14,825 [ominous music plays] 38 00:02:16,225 --> 00:02:19,145 [man in German] Scammers take advantage of people's desires. 39 00:02:21,545 --> 00:02:25,545 In Germany, the desire was, "We want to be at the front of the pack." 40 00:02:27,465 --> 00:02:29,585 Germany's industry is extremely successful 41 00:02:29,665 --> 00:02:31,345 but very old, very traditional. 42 00:02:31,425 --> 00:02:37,105 These famous German brands like Siemens, Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, 43 00:02:37,185 --> 00:02:39,745 these are all very old companies. 44 00:02:41,385 --> 00:02:43,225 That's why German politicians 45 00:02:43,305 --> 00:02:45,585 and German business people are often asked, 46 00:02:45,665 --> 00:02:47,625 "Where are actually your new companies?" 47 00:02:49,825 --> 00:02:54,185 We want a major, global, digital champion of our own 48 00:02:54,265 --> 00:02:55,745 like in Silicon Valley. 49 00:02:56,825 --> 00:02:59,745 The German Google, the German Facebook. 50 00:03:00,825 --> 00:03:05,305 And Wirecard played on that desire beautifully. 51 00:03:07,185 --> 00:03:08,865 [man in English] Discover Wirecard. 52 00:03:08,945 --> 00:03:13,025 We develop financial technologies that make payments mobile, seamless, 53 00:03:13,105 --> 00:03:14,585 and almost invisible. 54 00:03:15,465 --> 00:03:16,825 Partner up with Wirecard, 55 00:03:16,905 --> 00:03:20,985 the world's leading innovation driver in digital financial technology. 56 00:03:21,065 --> 00:03:22,785 [crowd cheers] 57 00:03:22,865 --> 00:03:24,185 He's a hero, a rock star. 58 00:03:24,265 --> 00:03:28,545 Please give a very warm welcome to the CEO and CTO of Wirecard, 59 00:03:28,625 --> 00:03:29,825 Dr. Markus Braun. 60 00:03:29,905 --> 00:03:30,985 [crowd applauds] 61 00:03:31,065 --> 00:03:33,225 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 62 00:03:33,865 --> 00:03:36,105 [in German] Wirecard was like the German PayPal. 63 00:03:36,185 --> 00:03:39,185 [in English] And in one sentence, that's our business model. 64 00:03:39,865 --> 00:03:41,665 [woman in German] Wirecard the processor 65 00:03:41,745 --> 00:03:43,745 for online trade, online shops. 66 00:03:44,825 --> 00:03:47,625 They make sure when I buy something, 67 00:03:47,705 --> 00:03:51,825 the money gets from my credit card to the online retailer. 68 00:03:51,905 --> 00:03:54,145 [in English] It's not about owning data, 69 00:03:54,905 --> 00:03:59,985 but it's about the algorithms that deliver a value out of data. 70 00:04:00,065 --> 00:04:03,745 [Lena in German] There's a company founder dressed 71 00:04:03,825 --> 00:04:07,825 in a black turtleneck with a neat turn of phrase… 72 00:04:07,905 --> 00:04:10,465 [in English] The business model delivers a value-add, 73 00:04:11,465 --> 00:04:13,385 and where there is a value-add, 74 00:04:13,905 --> 00:04:16,865 you have the money to reinvent. 75 00:04:16,945 --> 00:04:19,545 [Lena in German] …who presents himself as a visionary. 76 00:04:20,585 --> 00:04:22,545 The "Steve Jobs of the Alps." 77 00:04:37,185 --> 00:04:39,025 [in English] My name is Martin Osterloh. 78 00:04:39,545 --> 00:04:42,385 I worked for Wirecard for 16 years. 79 00:04:43,905 --> 00:04:50,465 When I joined in 2005, we were about 130, 150 people. 80 00:04:51,305 --> 00:04:56,865 When I left Wirecard, there were over 6,500 individuals. 81 00:04:58,865 --> 00:05:01,785 [in German] Wirecard is one of the fastest-growing 82 00:05:01,865 --> 00:05:03,545 financial commerce platforms. 83 00:05:04,305 --> 00:05:05,985 [Martin in English] When at Wirecard, 84 00:05:06,065 --> 00:05:13,025 there was an extremely proud sense of being a big German technology company. 85 00:05:13,105 --> 00:05:17,185 [reporter in German] Wirecard jumped on the digital train in the '90s 86 00:05:17,265 --> 00:05:19,145 that continues to pick up speed, 87 00:05:19,225 --> 00:05:23,105 and now Wirecard has even overtaken Deutsche Bank 88 00:05:23,185 --> 00:05:26,745 with their worth placed at over €20 billion. 89 00:05:26,825 --> 00:05:30,305 A symbol for the new era of the finance sector. 90 00:05:31,545 --> 00:05:33,905 [woman] This was a company on the rise. 91 00:05:34,625 --> 00:05:40,305 It grew unlike any other company we'd seen in Germany. 92 00:05:41,225 --> 00:05:47,385 And that rise, that immense growth, led many people to believe in it. 93 00:05:49,185 --> 00:05:53,065 [Florian] New, successful, global, profitable 94 00:05:53,625 --> 00:05:57,065 and German politicians were proud to be able to say, 95 00:05:57,145 --> 00:05:59,105 "Hey. We have a FinTech company!" 96 00:05:59,945 --> 00:06:02,785 [Lena] When the chancellor went to China, 97 00:06:02,865 --> 00:06:07,505 she actually campaigned for Wirecard in 2019 with Xi Jinping. 98 00:06:08,865 --> 00:06:12,625 [Cansel] Everyone in Germany believed in this company. 99 00:06:13,985 --> 00:06:17,105 No one would have believed that this was the work of gangsters. 100 00:06:18,625 --> 00:06:20,625 [suspenseful music plays] 101 00:06:34,265 --> 00:06:36,785 [in English] Being a journalist, you get to do all sorts of things 102 00:06:36,865 --> 00:06:38,425 which you're not supposed to. 103 00:06:44,465 --> 00:06:45,905 You're exposing secrets. 104 00:06:52,945 --> 00:06:55,625 The first time I ever heard the word Wirecard, 105 00:06:55,705 --> 00:06:59,185 I was looking for dodgy companies to write about. 106 00:06:59,265 --> 00:07:03,785 Corporate frauds, things like that, because they make great stories. 107 00:07:06,265 --> 00:07:09,025 I was chatting to this Australian hedge-fund manager. 108 00:07:09,105 --> 00:07:13,465 He's like, "So would you be interested in some German gangsters?" 109 00:07:14,665 --> 00:07:17,385 I think he looked to the accounts and thought it was a fraud. 110 00:07:17,465 --> 00:07:18,865 So I made a note, 111 00:07:19,385 --> 00:07:21,665 "Wirecard, something to look into." 112 00:07:21,745 --> 00:07:23,945 [suspenseful music continues] 113 00:07:24,025 --> 00:07:27,465 From the outside, it looked like a legitimate enterprise. 114 00:07:30,345 --> 00:07:33,385 I mean, it had 6,000 people. It had offices. 115 00:07:33,465 --> 00:07:34,385 [phone rings] 116 00:07:34,465 --> 00:07:35,545 The profits were great. 117 00:07:35,625 --> 00:07:38,265 And so I think it just sort of fitted into this, 118 00:07:38,345 --> 00:07:40,825 "Online payments. That's growing quickly, isn't it?" 119 00:07:44,385 --> 00:07:46,225 But this big pile of documents, 120 00:07:46,305 --> 00:07:49,305 which showed all these deals Wirecard had done in Asia, 121 00:07:49,385 --> 00:07:52,105 and something about them just seemed a bit off, 122 00:07:52,625 --> 00:07:54,585 that they didn't quite seem real. 123 00:07:55,585 --> 00:08:00,865 [Markus in German] Outside of Europe, we see a growth of 25% 124 00:08:00,945 --> 00:08:06,265 strongly driven by new regions, by developing regions of Asia. 125 00:08:08,385 --> 00:08:11,105 [Dan in English] Wirecard didn't appear to grow by adding customers, 126 00:08:11,185 --> 00:08:13,745 like Spotify might add subscribers. 127 00:08:13,825 --> 00:08:17,505 It was buying its growth by buying businesses, mostly in Asia. 128 00:08:18,025 --> 00:08:20,105 But, basically, the numbers don't add up. 129 00:08:21,585 --> 00:08:23,945 -I tried to talk to Wirecard. -[phone rings] 130 00:08:24,025 --> 00:08:28,185 They were like, "We're very busy dealing with our results. We can't talk to you." 131 00:08:28,785 --> 00:08:32,785 Normal companies don't do that when Financial Times knocks on the door. 132 00:08:33,665 --> 00:08:35,145 [phone rings] 133 00:08:35,225 --> 00:08:36,305 So, I persisted. 134 00:08:39,105 --> 00:08:41,625 Eventually, they put Markus Braun on the phone. 135 00:08:46,305 --> 00:08:47,265 [Dan talks] 136 00:08:47,985 --> 00:08:48,905 [Markus talks] 137 00:08:48,985 --> 00:08:51,665 [Dan talks] 138 00:08:51,745 --> 00:08:54,345 [Markus talks] 139 00:08:54,425 --> 00:08:56,905 [Dan laughs, talks] 140 00:08:56,985 --> 00:09:02,705 [Markus talks] 141 00:09:11,185 --> 00:09:14,185 "We are a software company which has a bank as a daughter." 142 00:09:15,265 --> 00:09:17,705 There were many weird things about that conversation. 143 00:09:17,785 --> 00:09:22,585 [Dan talks] 144 00:09:38,665 --> 00:09:42,785 [Markus talks] 145 00:10:00,625 --> 00:10:06,585 Wirecard always had the same playbook each time it was criticized. 146 00:10:06,665 --> 00:10:11,825 It would say that the critics were in league with short sellers 147 00:10:11,905 --> 00:10:14,185 seeking to manipulate the share price. 148 00:10:14,265 --> 00:10:16,265 [suspenseful music intensifies] 149 00:10:27,305 --> 00:10:28,905 [in German] My name is Tobias Bosler, 150 00:10:28,985 --> 00:10:32,385 and I have been, for many years, a short seller. 151 00:10:33,825 --> 00:10:37,825 Most people invest thinking a share price will rise. 152 00:10:39,105 --> 00:10:45,345 A short seller differs from an investor by making money when a share price falls 153 00:10:46,025 --> 00:10:48,745 and loses money when it increases. 154 00:10:49,665 --> 00:10:52,145 [man in English] The narrative that's given around short sellers 155 00:10:52,225 --> 00:10:56,345 is that they're there to just drive the share prices down on companies 156 00:10:56,425 --> 00:10:57,545 to seek a profit. 157 00:10:58,585 --> 00:11:02,785 Certain areas of the investment community would probably view short sellers 158 00:11:02,865 --> 00:11:06,545 as loosely affiliated with some sort of financial terrorist. 159 00:11:06,625 --> 00:11:08,185 Now, the reality of the situation 160 00:11:08,265 --> 00:11:12,225 is that most short sellers would take a short position 161 00:11:12,305 --> 00:11:15,505 because they think fundamentally a stock is overvalued. 162 00:11:15,585 --> 00:11:17,585 [sirens wailing] 163 00:11:21,105 --> 00:11:22,705 [Fahmi] We are short sellers. 164 00:11:23,545 --> 00:11:28,505 In fact, we're the only "short only, woman only" fund out there in the world. 165 00:11:30,225 --> 00:11:33,505 We exclusively make money by betting against stocks, 166 00:11:33,585 --> 00:11:36,065 betting that the prices of those stocks will fall. 167 00:11:36,145 --> 00:11:39,345 And we gain our conviction around these bets 168 00:11:39,425 --> 00:11:43,185 by doing a lot of deep investigative work to make sure that we're right. 169 00:11:44,625 --> 00:11:47,625 [Matthew] I mean, it's a lot like being a financial detective. 170 00:11:48,305 --> 00:11:53,265 I mean, what we look at are companies that we think are generally up to no good. 171 00:11:55,025 --> 00:11:58,105 [Tobias in German] I investigated Wirecard for two years. 172 00:11:59,505 --> 00:12:02,305 I understood its business model perfectly. 173 00:12:03,065 --> 00:12:08,625 It handled payments for online businesses in pornography and online gambling, 174 00:12:09,785 --> 00:12:11,185 but it wasn't illegal. 175 00:12:14,825 --> 00:12:17,865 [Martin in English] It was certainly a big part of what we did, 176 00:12:17,945 --> 00:12:21,785 and it made the company very strong at the beginning. 177 00:12:22,825 --> 00:12:28,065 Everything from poker companies, casinos, bingo, 178 00:12:28,585 --> 00:12:30,625 certainly also pornography. 179 00:12:31,665 --> 00:12:33,705 But we didn't call them porn. 180 00:12:33,785 --> 00:12:35,345 [interviewer] What would you call them? 181 00:12:35,425 --> 00:12:37,385 Emotional content. 182 00:12:37,945 --> 00:12:38,985 [laughs] 183 00:12:39,065 --> 00:12:41,065 [interviewer laughs] 184 00:12:43,745 --> 00:12:46,385 -[interviewer] Are you joking? -I'm not joking. 185 00:12:48,025 --> 00:12:53,585 [in German] The poker market in the US was 50% of the global poker market. 186 00:12:55,145 --> 00:12:59,105 But that all changed in 2006 187 00:12:59,185 --> 00:13:03,745 when a new law in America made it illegal 188 00:13:03,825 --> 00:13:08,425 to handle payments for US citizens playing poker. 189 00:13:08,505 --> 00:13:13,505 So Wirecard lost a major source of income. 190 00:13:14,545 --> 00:13:18,905 But, in spite of this law, the profits of Wirecard kept rising. 191 00:13:21,465 --> 00:13:23,385 What company is able to do that? 192 00:13:24,265 --> 00:13:26,225 This can't be right. 193 00:13:29,145 --> 00:13:32,465 [Dan in English] We're trying to write the story, but it was complicated. 194 00:13:32,545 --> 00:13:35,985 I'd go backwards and forwards and basically got nothing. 195 00:13:36,945 --> 00:13:38,225 At that point, I'd given up 196 00:13:38,305 --> 00:13:41,545 because nobody seemed interested in the Wirecard story. 197 00:13:41,625 --> 00:13:43,425 And then I get this phone call. 198 00:13:43,505 --> 00:13:44,705 [tense music plays] 199 00:13:44,785 --> 00:13:47,025 So I went to meet this guy, Matt Earl. 200 00:13:47,105 --> 00:13:50,785 I think he rang me up and said, "Hey. Do you wanna go meet for lunch?" 201 00:13:52,385 --> 00:13:53,705 He was a short seller. 202 00:13:54,545 --> 00:13:57,425 And also he wrote blogs about frauds. 203 00:13:57,505 --> 00:13:58,865 This thing called Zatarra. 204 00:14:01,425 --> 00:14:03,625 [Matthew] The first time I became aware of Wirecard 205 00:14:03,705 --> 00:14:07,825 was when a reader of the blog that I wrote reached out to me to say, 206 00:14:07,905 --> 00:14:10,745 "Have you looked at this German payments business, Wirecard?" 207 00:14:12,145 --> 00:14:16,465 There was allegations that Wirecard had been involved 208 00:14:16,545 --> 00:14:19,465 in a money-laundering operation in Florida. 209 00:14:21,065 --> 00:14:22,265 There was press reports 210 00:14:22,345 --> 00:14:26,625 that they had been processing unlawful gambling-related monies 211 00:14:26,705 --> 00:14:28,465 into the United States. 212 00:14:28,545 --> 00:14:29,465 That was illegal. 213 00:14:29,545 --> 00:14:31,385 So I thought, "Let's have a look at this." 214 00:14:33,825 --> 00:14:36,505 [Dan] The meeting was in a Japanese restaurant in the city. 215 00:14:37,225 --> 00:14:40,505 And so we sort of sit down, you know, order, and it's like, 216 00:14:40,585 --> 00:14:42,745 "Okay. What's going on?" 217 00:14:44,025 --> 00:14:46,105 And Matt sort of slides under the table, 218 00:14:46,185 --> 00:14:48,385 I think it was a Tesco carrier bag full, 219 00:14:48,465 --> 00:14:50,985 this big sheaf of documents about that thick. 220 00:14:51,065 --> 00:14:53,425 And then he explained this is the Zatarra report. 221 00:14:54,225 --> 00:14:55,825 This is what he's been working on. 222 00:14:55,905 --> 00:14:59,025 There's 120 pages of this stuff. 223 00:14:59,105 --> 00:15:01,025 And the core of the Zatarra allegation 224 00:15:01,105 --> 00:15:06,305 was everyone thinks Wirecard is this big payment processor doing legit things, 225 00:15:06,385 --> 00:15:10,105 and actually the heart of its business is laundering money for criminals. 226 00:15:10,185 --> 00:15:12,385 [upbeat music plays] 227 00:15:15,665 --> 00:15:20,025 Money laundering is taking the proceeds of crime and cleaning the money. 228 00:15:24,385 --> 00:15:27,985 If you rob a bank and have a big bag full of cash, 229 00:15:28,065 --> 00:15:31,625 you might launder the money by making it look like you earned the money. 230 00:15:31,705 --> 00:15:34,865 And Wirecard was doing this for various online businesses, 231 00:15:34,945 --> 00:15:36,945 but the principle is the same. 232 00:15:37,025 --> 00:15:40,185 What Wirecard would do is if it was contentious, 233 00:15:40,265 --> 00:15:42,185 say like gambling or porn, 234 00:15:42,265 --> 00:15:44,865 miscode the transaction as something else. 235 00:15:44,945 --> 00:15:47,545 Instead of putting a payment as gambling, it might go, 236 00:15:47,625 --> 00:15:49,505 "Actually, this is a florist." 237 00:15:50,385 --> 00:15:51,825 Wirecard could get away with it 238 00:15:51,905 --> 00:15:55,225 by taking advantage of various little weaknesses in the system. 239 00:15:56,225 --> 00:15:58,905 [Matthew] All the transactions would come into the United States 240 00:15:58,985 --> 00:16:02,025 via a UK company called Bluetool, 241 00:16:02,905 --> 00:16:04,585 based in Consett, County Durham. 242 00:16:04,665 --> 00:16:06,665 [mischievous music plays] 243 00:16:08,905 --> 00:16:12,985 Consett is this little, depressed ex-mining town up on the moors. 244 00:16:13,905 --> 00:16:15,585 [Matthew] Now, you'd think that a company 245 00:16:15,665 --> 00:16:18,825 that is sending hundreds of millions of dollars over to the US 246 00:16:18,905 --> 00:16:22,505 would have a significant office presence. 247 00:16:23,785 --> 00:16:25,265 This was someone's house. 248 00:16:26,945 --> 00:16:28,305 That seems sort of odd. 249 00:16:29,185 --> 00:16:31,225 [Dan] It is exactly like Ozark. 250 00:16:31,305 --> 00:16:32,585 It's an out-of-the-way place 251 00:16:32,665 --> 00:16:36,225 where they could launder huge amounts of money. 252 00:16:36,865 --> 00:16:40,505 We were approached by somebody from up the street 253 00:16:40,585 --> 00:16:42,265 from where we used to live. 254 00:16:42,345 --> 00:16:45,905 And they asked if we just wanted to have some free money. 255 00:16:45,985 --> 00:16:48,425 They said all you had to do was to sign your name, 256 00:16:48,505 --> 00:16:50,705 and when you signed your name, you got 50 quid. 257 00:16:51,945 --> 00:16:54,785 [Dan] The people who were listed as the directors of these companies 258 00:16:54,865 --> 00:16:56,385 had no idea about them. 259 00:16:56,465 --> 00:17:00,825 But really, that company would be a shell to hide the real owner, 260 00:17:00,905 --> 00:17:03,305 which was, you know, a gambling website. 261 00:17:04,145 --> 00:17:07,785 I mean, all you were told at the time was that you would get letters 262 00:17:08,585 --> 00:17:12,185 and all you had to do was post them back, and that's all we've ever had to do. 263 00:17:13,225 --> 00:17:14,745 [Dan] So you've got a German bank 264 00:17:14,825 --> 00:17:18,585 moving money through the north of England in this remote, little town 265 00:17:18,665 --> 00:17:22,105 for all these dodgy businesses elsewhere in the world. 266 00:17:23,545 --> 00:17:28,385 We're talking about maybe billions of dollars hidden in the shadows. 267 00:17:28,465 --> 00:17:32,545 And it just happened to be this little, red-brick town in the north of England 268 00:17:32,625 --> 00:17:35,865 was the perfect channel to make it look legit. 269 00:17:35,945 --> 00:17:38,865 [Matthew] They had literally set up the whole infrastructure 270 00:17:38,945 --> 00:17:42,345 to permit laundering of money to take place. 271 00:17:43,025 --> 00:17:46,465 So in my mind, that rendered Wirecard worthless 272 00:17:46,545 --> 00:17:48,945 because this was an illegal operation. 273 00:17:49,025 --> 00:17:51,025 So yeah. I started shorting the company. 274 00:17:51,105 --> 00:17:53,865 -[tense music plays] -[sirens wailing] 275 00:17:57,265 --> 00:18:00,345 [Dan] The idea was that I would go away and do my own work, 276 00:18:00,425 --> 00:18:03,385 and then Matt Earl's Zatarra report would come out. 277 00:18:03,465 --> 00:18:05,465 And then I could go, "I've checked all of this." 278 00:18:05,545 --> 00:18:07,425 "Look, there's some interesting parts from it." 279 00:18:07,505 --> 00:18:10,145 [tense music intensifies] 280 00:18:11,545 --> 00:18:15,105 What I should have said is, "Matt Earl is a short seller." 281 00:18:15,185 --> 00:18:17,665 These people have bet against the Wirecard share price, 282 00:18:17,745 --> 00:18:21,105 so they have a big interest in pushing the price down. 283 00:18:21,185 --> 00:18:22,625 So read it with that in mind. 284 00:18:24,305 --> 00:18:25,865 [tense music ends] 285 00:18:25,945 --> 00:18:28,545 [Matthew] We highlight the wrongdoings of companies. 286 00:18:29,065 --> 00:18:32,385 And there is, obviously, a profit element to it because if we're right, 287 00:18:32,465 --> 00:18:35,705 then we make a return on the capital that we've risked. 288 00:18:37,145 --> 00:18:40,505 [Dan] When the Zatarra report came out, I sort of dashed back to the office. 289 00:18:40,585 --> 00:18:43,545 I was like, "I've got to tell everyone, and I want the scoop." 290 00:18:44,065 --> 00:18:46,425 And so I wrote this quick piece. 291 00:18:46,505 --> 00:18:48,305 I was in too much of a hurry, 292 00:18:48,825 --> 00:18:52,225 and I didn't really stop to think how the whole thing would look. 293 00:18:52,865 --> 00:18:57,465 The Zatarra report had an immediate impact on Wirecard's share price, 294 00:18:57,545 --> 00:19:03,945 which fell, but it fell a lot further after Dan published his post, 295 00:19:04,025 --> 00:19:06,385 drawing attention to the Zatarra report. 296 00:19:07,905 --> 00:19:12,905 From that one post, a billion euros or more just vanish, 297 00:19:13,505 --> 00:19:17,145 and that put us immediately in hot water. 298 00:19:21,265 --> 00:19:24,865 [man] The moment I realized that Wirecard was going to be a troubling story 299 00:19:24,945 --> 00:19:27,545 was when the first lawyers' letters came in. 300 00:19:27,625 --> 00:19:31,905 They were raising questions about the relationship 301 00:19:31,985 --> 00:19:35,745 between Dan and the authors of the Zatarra report. 302 00:19:35,825 --> 00:19:37,385 And there was this allegation 303 00:19:37,465 --> 00:19:40,425 that somehow Dan was colluding with short sellers, 304 00:19:40,505 --> 00:19:43,865 people who are essentially betting against the company's share price. 305 00:19:43,945 --> 00:19:44,785 [inhales] 306 00:19:44,865 --> 00:19:49,305 Uh, that's a pretty serious charge because it's essentially suggesting 307 00:19:49,385 --> 00:19:53,025 that one of the journalists has been involved in share-price manipulation. 308 00:19:53,105 --> 00:19:54,105 That's serious. 309 00:19:56,905 --> 00:20:00,745 [Cansel in German] In Germany, short sellers have a bad reputation. 310 00:20:03,545 --> 00:20:06,865 The perception is because they are betting on the share price dropping, 311 00:20:06,945 --> 00:20:10,065 they are actively seeking to destroy companies. 312 00:20:10,145 --> 00:20:13,745 Jobs are lost and that can't be good. 313 00:20:15,425 --> 00:20:18,585 The Zatarra Report wasn't seen as credible. 314 00:20:18,665 --> 00:20:21,905 The criticism was always, "What kind of report is this?" 315 00:20:21,985 --> 00:20:24,785 "There isn't enough evidence to back up its claims." 316 00:20:24,865 --> 00:20:26,665 "It's just mud-slinging 317 00:20:27,865 --> 00:20:31,385 because German companies do not make mistakes." 318 00:20:33,225 --> 00:20:38,065 It was seen very strongly as an attack on Germany itself, on German companies. 319 00:20:38,145 --> 00:20:39,865 [tense music plays] 320 00:20:41,145 --> 00:20:45,145 [Paul in English] We were suddenly under attack from all directions. 321 00:20:46,665 --> 00:20:51,065 We had legal threats coming in, anonymous phone calls just abusing us. 322 00:20:51,145 --> 00:20:55,585 And it was unlike anything we'd had previously. 323 00:20:55,665 --> 00:20:56,865 It was relentless. 324 00:20:58,265 --> 00:21:01,265 [Dan] Twitter's just this whole total, other free-for-all. 325 00:21:02,345 --> 00:21:06,825 So you get people going, "Yeah. You're a criminal, McCrum. Go to jail." 326 00:21:06,905 --> 00:21:08,865 [camera zooming in] 327 00:21:11,105 --> 00:21:12,985 Then occasionally, there'd be threats. 328 00:21:13,065 --> 00:21:14,625 [siren wailing] 329 00:21:14,705 --> 00:21:17,185 "You're gonna get what's coming to you," sort of thing. 330 00:21:20,225 --> 00:21:23,665 [Matthew] There was a vehicle that was parked outside my house 331 00:21:23,745 --> 00:21:25,545 that started following me. 332 00:21:25,625 --> 00:21:28,985 [car engine revving] 333 00:21:29,065 --> 00:21:30,585 It was very unnerving. 334 00:21:34,625 --> 00:21:37,025 I had the license plates noted down, 335 00:21:38,825 --> 00:21:41,305 and that led back to investigative agencies 336 00:21:41,385 --> 00:21:43,065 that were working for Wirecard. 337 00:21:44,225 --> 00:21:45,305 [camera shutter clicks] 338 00:21:47,385 --> 00:21:51,825 [Lionel] And then one day, Paul says that somebody's been trying to listen in 339 00:21:51,905 --> 00:21:53,785 to conversations in my office. 340 00:21:55,945 --> 00:21:58,585 I said, "How?" And he says, "Across the bridge." 341 00:22:02,305 --> 00:22:03,945 He spotted this person. 342 00:22:05,185 --> 00:22:07,145 Unbelievable, with a lookout. 343 00:22:07,665 --> 00:22:09,945 And they got this highly sensitive listening device 344 00:22:10,025 --> 00:22:12,065 across the Thames into my office. 345 00:22:12,145 --> 00:22:16,105 [suspenseful music plays] 346 00:22:18,305 --> 00:22:20,345 What the bloody hell's going on? 347 00:22:32,945 --> 00:22:36,025 [tense music plays] 348 00:22:36,105 --> 00:22:40,305 [Tobias in German] A few weeks after I opened the short position, 349 00:22:40,385 --> 00:22:44,625 I got a call from the Wirecard lawyer. 350 00:22:46,345 --> 00:22:49,145 He says, "You are short-selling Wirecard." 351 00:22:49,225 --> 00:22:51,905 I thought, "How did you figure that out?" 352 00:22:53,185 --> 00:22:55,665 He read me all the transactions. 353 00:22:55,745 --> 00:22:58,945 Date, time, amount, rate. 354 00:23:01,865 --> 00:23:05,105 He knew everything. Then he says, "We need to talk." 355 00:23:06,385 --> 00:23:09,985 He arrived with two thugs. 356 00:23:11,545 --> 00:23:16,665 They looked exactly as you imagine thugs to be. 357 00:23:16,745 --> 00:23:18,425 Straightaway they pushed me 358 00:23:19,665 --> 00:23:24,545 and punched the wall with full force. 359 00:23:26,545 --> 00:23:29,185 I admit I was really scared. 360 00:23:32,505 --> 00:23:37,545 What company sends a bunch of thugs to an investor's office? 361 00:23:40,545 --> 00:23:44,145 After that, I stopped looking into Wirecard. 362 00:23:44,225 --> 00:23:45,145 I let it be. 363 00:23:47,305 --> 00:23:49,905 And no one else looked closely into Wirecard, 364 00:23:50,745 --> 00:23:53,105 except Dan McCrum. 365 00:23:57,785 --> 00:23:59,985 [Dan in English] I'd been looking at Wirecard 366 00:24:00,065 --> 00:24:02,665 for a year-and-a-half at that point when Zatarra came out. 367 00:24:03,385 --> 00:24:04,545 And so I was like, 368 00:24:04,625 --> 00:24:08,065 "Surely regulators, investors are gonna look at this and go, 369 00:24:08,145 --> 00:24:10,425 'There's so much dirt. We've got to look into it.'" 370 00:24:11,985 --> 00:24:13,665 But nothing ever came of it. 371 00:24:18,505 --> 00:24:21,865 [Paul] Immediately, the stock price rebounded. 372 00:24:22,905 --> 00:24:27,225 [in German] My dear shareholders… 373 00:24:28,145 --> 00:24:30,665 [Martin in English] Dr. Braun had the trust of the employees, 374 00:24:30,745 --> 00:24:32,825 but he never looked relaxed. 375 00:24:34,105 --> 00:24:39,305 He looked like a business consultant in a room of people having a party. 376 00:24:39,385 --> 00:24:42,145 [in German] …from these added values for the consumer. 377 00:24:42,225 --> 00:24:44,745 [Martin in English] But when Dr. Braun was near, 378 00:24:44,825 --> 00:24:47,145 Jan Marsalek was not far away. 379 00:24:47,225 --> 00:24:49,745 [tense music continues] 380 00:24:53,585 --> 00:24:56,465 Jan was hyper-cool. 381 00:24:58,585 --> 00:25:01,465 He was mentored by Dr. Braun. 382 00:25:01,545 --> 00:25:05,105 You had the feeling that Braun was proud 383 00:25:05,185 --> 00:25:08,145 to have a fellow Austrian that he could mentor 384 00:25:08,225 --> 00:25:12,065 and be his right-hand guy within the company. 385 00:25:15,385 --> 00:25:18,025 Well, if I find a weak spot, but I'm… 386 00:25:18,545 --> 00:25:20,905 [Martin] Jan just oozed confidence. 387 00:25:21,985 --> 00:25:25,505 He had very strong command of situations. 388 00:25:25,585 --> 00:25:27,665 It's not working. It's not cold enough. 389 00:25:27,745 --> 00:25:34,065 I didn't have a quarter of the confidence that he had at a snip of a finger. 390 00:25:34,145 --> 00:25:36,585 Wirecard does not operate as an acquirer. 391 00:25:36,665 --> 00:25:38,825 Um, it can work with partners in the background. 392 00:25:40,345 --> 00:25:44,585 [Martin] When you ask him if he had a few minutes of his valuable time, 393 00:25:44,665 --> 00:25:47,185 he would always say, "For you, always." 394 00:25:48,065 --> 00:25:49,985 But he would say that to almost everyone. 395 00:25:53,305 --> 00:25:55,425 [man in German] Marsalek is a completely different type. 396 00:25:55,505 --> 00:25:58,545 Extremely charming, 397 00:25:58,625 --> 00:26:02,545 very approachable, a great communicator. 398 00:26:03,145 --> 00:26:05,985 Everything Braun didn't have, Marsalek had, 399 00:26:06,065 --> 00:26:08,425 which is why they were a great team. 400 00:26:10,905 --> 00:26:15,585 I think that very few people knew who Jan Marsalek really was. 401 00:26:17,825 --> 00:26:20,625 He is certainly at the center of this scandal. 402 00:26:20,705 --> 00:26:24,425 He is the one who made sure that the turnover 403 00:26:24,505 --> 00:26:28,105 was always the way his boss, Braun, wanted. 404 00:26:29,145 --> 00:26:31,145 [tense music intensifies] 405 00:26:37,825 --> 00:26:41,665 [reporter] The German Stock Exchange is richer because of one company. 406 00:26:41,745 --> 00:26:45,185 The payment-processing company, Wirecard, from Aschheim near Munich 407 00:26:45,265 --> 00:26:47,905 has made the leap into the stock market premier league. 408 00:26:49,505 --> 00:26:53,385 Wirecard's share price last year was €77.40. 409 00:26:53,465 --> 00:26:57,145 Today it stands at €189.40. 410 00:26:57,225 --> 00:27:00,505 [Markus] Our figures tell a story of strong growth. 411 00:27:00,585 --> 00:27:04,545 How our business is valued is a question for the investors. 412 00:27:05,345 --> 00:27:08,785 Wirecard has shaken up the German stock exchange this week 413 00:27:08,865 --> 00:27:12,185 and kicked the Commerzbank out of the elite DAX index. 414 00:27:13,985 --> 00:27:16,305 [in English] It's about making the cake much bigger. 415 00:27:16,385 --> 00:27:19,865 I'm in the business of making the cake much bigger. 416 00:27:19,945 --> 00:27:23,505 I've got a German CEO here of the company Wirecard. 417 00:27:23,585 --> 00:27:26,025 Um, and today, Markus Braun, 418 00:27:26,105 --> 00:27:28,465 you guys are gonna replace Commerzbank, in the DAX. 419 00:27:28,545 --> 00:27:32,225 You're gonna be one of the big companies on the benchmark index here. 420 00:27:32,305 --> 00:27:33,705 What does that mean to you? 421 00:27:33,785 --> 00:27:36,345 I think it brings a lot of awareness, positive awareness. 422 00:27:36,425 --> 00:27:37,985 Uh, it's good for investors. 423 00:27:38,065 --> 00:27:42,545 But of course, in operative terms, it doesn't change our strong strategy. 424 00:27:43,305 --> 00:27:46,065 [Lena in German] A lot of investors believe in German values, 425 00:27:46,145 --> 00:27:48,865 and now it has the DAX seal of approval. 426 00:27:48,945 --> 00:27:51,305 So a lot of people thought a DAX company 427 00:27:51,385 --> 00:27:56,785 would be tightly regulated by the German authorities. 428 00:27:57,705 --> 00:28:00,505 Who wouldn't be thrilled to have money invested in Wirecard? 429 00:28:01,465 --> 00:28:03,465 [sirens wailing] 430 00:28:07,825 --> 00:28:09,545 [Paul in English] Wirecard, at the time, 431 00:28:09,625 --> 00:28:12,945 was a big talking point throughout the London market. 432 00:28:13,025 --> 00:28:17,465 We'd had legal complaints, but we brushed them off. 433 00:28:18,665 --> 00:28:23,745 A while later, I was having lunch with one of my stock-market sources, 434 00:28:23,825 --> 00:28:25,745 and Wirecard came up. 435 00:28:26,465 --> 00:28:30,425 He said, "You know that they will pay you a lot of money 436 00:28:30,505 --> 00:28:32,265 to stop writing about them." 437 00:28:32,345 --> 00:28:35,425 And I laughed, and I said, "Don't be stupid." 438 00:28:35,505 --> 00:28:37,225 He said, "No, no, no. Definitely." 439 00:28:37,305 --> 00:28:40,945 "They will pay you good money not to write about them." 440 00:28:41,785 --> 00:28:44,785 And he said, "Look. Go and talk to Gary." 441 00:28:44,865 --> 00:28:46,345 [upbeat music plays] 442 00:28:46,425 --> 00:28:48,145 -Gary and Tom. -Gary. I'm Tom. 443 00:28:50,265 --> 00:28:52,985 -What's with the glasses? -[director] Best without glasses. 444 00:28:53,065 --> 00:28:54,985 Is it? I thought they look cool. 445 00:28:56,505 --> 00:28:57,905 [laughs] 446 00:28:58,865 --> 00:29:02,585 [Paul] Gary is a great, old mate, very active trader. 447 00:29:03,225 --> 00:29:05,985 You know, he had a good ear for what was happening. 448 00:29:06,065 --> 00:29:07,385 And he basically said, 449 00:29:07,465 --> 00:29:10,545 "What's this stuff you've been writing about Wirecard?" 450 00:29:10,625 --> 00:29:12,505 "Are you sure it's right?" 451 00:29:12,585 --> 00:29:17,265 And Gary says, "'Cause I've got a guy here who says it's all wrong." 452 00:29:17,345 --> 00:29:19,465 "Actually, he wants to talk to you." 453 00:29:19,985 --> 00:29:22,585 And I said, "Well, who is it?" 454 00:29:22,665 --> 00:29:25,305 "It's a guy called Jan Marsalek." 455 00:29:25,385 --> 00:29:26,905 [tense music plays] 456 00:29:28,065 --> 00:29:30,705 I could've fallen off my chair. 457 00:29:32,585 --> 00:29:35,065 You know, Gary was a confidential source of mine. 458 00:29:36,025 --> 00:29:39,185 How did Marsalek find out that we knew each other? 459 00:29:42,465 --> 00:29:46,025 It would have been around 2017. 460 00:29:47,705 --> 00:29:51,505 One of my good friends came into the bar where I usually get my breakfast 461 00:29:51,585 --> 00:29:54,705 and had a little Post-It note with a number on, 462 00:29:54,785 --> 00:29:56,385 and a name, Jan Marsalek, 463 00:29:56,465 --> 00:30:00,305 and said, "Can you call this fella? It will be worth your while." 464 00:30:01,585 --> 00:30:04,785 Didn't know what it meant at the time. It's odd, but we might make some money. 465 00:30:04,865 --> 00:30:06,505 We'll have a try. 466 00:30:07,145 --> 00:30:08,865 So I phoned up and he said to me, 467 00:30:08,945 --> 00:30:12,785 "Look. I'm prepared to pay you a very substantial amount of money 468 00:30:12,865 --> 00:30:16,305 to introduce me to your good friend, Paul Murphy." 469 00:30:18,225 --> 00:30:20,065 I said, "I'll talk to Paul." 470 00:30:20,705 --> 00:30:24,745 [Paul] Gary says, "This guy, Jan Marsalek, is desperate to meet you." 471 00:30:24,825 --> 00:30:29,825 "He will get on a plane and come to London for lunch at the drop of a hat." 472 00:30:30,425 --> 00:30:33,505 The immediate thought was this is some sort of setup. 473 00:30:33,585 --> 00:30:37,145 Because it's such a strange, uh, thing to happen. 474 00:30:37,665 --> 00:30:39,185 So I said yes to the lunch. 475 00:30:43,385 --> 00:30:47,745 Basically, we wanted to see whether Marsalek would offer me money 476 00:30:47,825 --> 00:30:50,225 to stop writing about Wirecard. 477 00:30:50,825 --> 00:30:51,825 That was the plan. 478 00:30:56,705 --> 00:30:59,705 I was introduced to Jan Marsalek for the first time. 479 00:31:01,585 --> 00:31:04,425 He was obviously very sharp, 480 00:31:04,505 --> 00:31:07,665 very careful in what he said. 481 00:31:09,545 --> 00:31:10,905 [Gary] On first impressions, 482 00:31:10,985 --> 00:31:15,945 I was looking at a very well-dressed, articulate, straight-talking man. 483 00:31:17,185 --> 00:31:19,785 [Tom] It was the Financial Times versus Wirecard. 484 00:31:19,865 --> 00:31:23,105 They were trying to find any sort of information on Wirecard. 485 00:31:23,185 --> 00:31:25,705 And then Wirecard were trying to find information back. 486 00:31:26,745 --> 00:31:28,145 [Paul] It was quite awkward. 487 00:31:29,425 --> 00:31:33,345 He talked at length about how he had direct experience 488 00:31:33,425 --> 00:31:38,185 of journalists who were taking bribes to write negative articles. 489 00:31:38,985 --> 00:31:43,345 I told him I'd never accepted a bribe, 490 00:31:43,425 --> 00:31:45,385 and he said, "I know that, Paul." 491 00:31:45,465 --> 00:31:48,225 "I've seen evidence that you've never accepted a bribe." 492 00:31:48,305 --> 00:31:51,305 And I thought, "Ah, you've been through my bank account." 493 00:31:51,385 --> 00:31:52,545 Uh, and he clearly had. 494 00:31:55,065 --> 00:31:56,625 I kind of realized, at that point, 495 00:31:56,705 --> 00:32:01,585 that he wasn't going to suddenly offer me a bag of cash there at the table. 496 00:32:01,665 --> 00:32:03,825 There were too many people around the table. 497 00:32:03,905 --> 00:32:05,905 [suspenseful music plays] 498 00:32:06,905 --> 00:32:10,785 [Gary] It ended in Jan saying, "I'm very happy that Paul's listened." 499 00:32:10,865 --> 00:32:12,985 Paul said, "We're gonna draw a line under this, 500 00:32:13,065 --> 00:32:15,905 and FT will not keep regurgitating this old stuff." 501 00:32:15,985 --> 00:32:18,825 "However, if there's new stuff, 502 00:32:18,905 --> 00:32:19,985 we will nail you." 503 00:32:20,625 --> 00:32:22,265 And Jan was smiling. 504 00:32:23,225 --> 00:32:26,705 [hesitates] "That's not gonna happen because we're doing nothing wrong." 505 00:32:28,065 --> 00:32:32,705 At that point, I negotiated a fee for my PR. 506 00:32:33,225 --> 00:32:37,305 I asked for a set fee of 500,000 euros. 507 00:32:37,385 --> 00:32:43,785 He settled on 32-and-a-half thousand euros a month 508 00:32:43,865 --> 00:32:44,785 for six months, 509 00:32:44,865 --> 00:32:47,865 but said, "Look. Can you keep me in contact with the short sellers, 510 00:32:47,945 --> 00:32:49,625 just so I know what's going on?" 511 00:32:49,705 --> 00:32:52,665 And I felt a little bit like a double agent, but Paul knew, 512 00:32:52,745 --> 00:32:54,065 and Jan knew. 513 00:32:55,865 --> 00:32:59,025 [suspenseful music intensifies] 514 00:33:00,505 --> 00:33:02,665 [Fahmi] I launched Safkhet Capital Management 515 00:33:02,745 --> 00:33:04,385 in January of 2018. 516 00:33:05,385 --> 00:33:08,625 We were just doing our own research, looking for opportunities, 517 00:33:08,705 --> 00:33:12,465 and a name that came up consistently was Wirecard. 518 00:33:12,985 --> 00:33:17,625 Because, finally, Wirecard is making its first foray onto US soil. 519 00:33:18,505 --> 00:33:19,865 [woman speaks ad copy] 520 00:33:25,825 --> 00:33:29,465 Over 20-plus years, we've emerged as a leader in payment solutions 521 00:33:29,545 --> 00:33:31,265 in North America and beyond. 522 00:33:31,345 --> 00:33:33,425 [Fahmi] What was new at that time was the fact 523 00:33:33,505 --> 00:33:37,865 that Wirecard had acquired Citi's North American prepaid-card business. 524 00:33:38,905 --> 00:33:43,705 Prepaid cards are a very effective way of laundering cash internationally, 525 00:33:43,785 --> 00:33:45,585 including dirty money. 526 00:33:47,145 --> 00:33:49,905 You don't need to put your name on the card or open a bank account. 527 00:33:49,985 --> 00:33:52,905 You can just have a card with the Wirecard logo. 528 00:33:52,985 --> 00:33:57,025 The amount of criminal activity that could go on is alarming. 529 00:33:57,545 --> 00:34:01,545 [Fahmi] That was something that we wanted to really dig into 530 00:34:01,625 --> 00:34:06,305 and see if there was anything that related to these allegations in Zatarra 531 00:34:06,825 --> 00:34:09,505 that would now be occurring on American soil. 532 00:34:09,585 --> 00:34:11,945 [suspenseful music continues] 533 00:34:13,225 --> 00:34:16,185 Wirecard's offices were in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, 534 00:34:16,265 --> 00:34:18,105 which is two hours from New York City. 535 00:34:18,185 --> 00:34:21,545 So we decided why not just drive over there 536 00:34:21,625 --> 00:34:23,385 in Christina's beat-up… 537 00:34:23,465 --> 00:34:25,425 [laughs] …little Volkswagen? 538 00:34:34,905 --> 00:34:36,785 [Fahmi] We saw the Wirecard signs, 539 00:34:36,865 --> 00:34:39,225 and then there was no security, 540 00:34:39,305 --> 00:34:40,745 so we just walked up the stairs. 541 00:34:40,825 --> 00:34:43,505 [camera shutter clicking] 542 00:34:44,225 --> 00:34:45,545 It was very large. 543 00:34:45,625 --> 00:34:48,345 Really, it should maybe fit 600 people… 544 00:34:48,425 --> 00:34:51,105 -A lot, yes. -…but there were maybe 30 people. 545 00:34:51,985 --> 00:34:53,785 And then they asked us what we wanted, 546 00:34:53,865 --> 00:34:57,865 and we said that we wanted to speak to someone about buying prepaid cards. 547 00:34:57,945 --> 00:35:02,985 He assured me that it's all very easy, I could give those cards to who I wanted. 548 00:35:03,065 --> 00:35:04,105 It's not a problem. 549 00:35:04,185 --> 00:35:08,385 And then he said I could even get cards up to $150,000 550 00:35:09,585 --> 00:35:11,105 on a single card. 551 00:35:12,785 --> 00:35:15,145 This was a massive shock. 552 00:35:15,225 --> 00:35:17,305 And when we checked on the dark web 553 00:35:17,385 --> 00:35:20,705 to buy prepaid cards that are being resold on the dark web, 554 00:35:20,785 --> 00:35:23,145 the most you can get is $10,000. 555 00:35:24,825 --> 00:35:28,825 Fall of 2018, where I finally just pinged Dan McCrum. 556 00:35:28,905 --> 00:35:30,185 [phone chimes] 557 00:35:30,785 --> 00:35:33,985 And said, "Hey. We're looking at Wirecard in the US." 558 00:35:34,985 --> 00:35:36,665 "I think we have something here." 559 00:35:38,025 --> 00:35:40,105 [phone rings] 560 00:35:41,945 --> 00:35:44,385 [Dan] Fahmi wasn't the only short seller who contacted me 561 00:35:44,465 --> 00:35:46,305 after Wirecard entered the DAX. 562 00:35:46,945 --> 00:35:49,905 I was bombarded with ideas by short sellers. 563 00:35:49,985 --> 00:35:52,225 Some of them were obsessed with money laundering. 564 00:35:52,305 --> 00:35:55,545 Others were convinced that Wirecard's business couldn't be real. 565 00:35:55,625 --> 00:35:57,185 [phone rings] 566 00:35:57,265 --> 00:36:00,065 The problem was that none of them had any proof. 567 00:36:00,145 --> 00:36:03,745 They were all theories, but then-- when was it? 568 00:36:03,825 --> 00:36:07,825 Sort of one Monday morning in October, I get this funny email from Singapore. 569 00:36:07,905 --> 00:36:09,065 [tense music plays] 570 00:36:09,145 --> 00:36:12,225 Criminal behavior at a big financial company. 571 00:36:13,105 --> 00:36:14,065 Wirecard. 572 00:36:15,865 --> 00:36:18,785 And so I get in touch with Stefania Palma in Singapore. 573 00:36:18,865 --> 00:36:20,865 [tense music continues] 574 00:36:27,385 --> 00:36:31,905 [Stefania] In Singapore, Wirecard was just absolutely pervasive. 575 00:36:32,425 --> 00:36:35,745 Thousands of shops, and merchants, and hotels 576 00:36:35,825 --> 00:36:38,865 were using Wirecard's card machines. 577 00:36:41,545 --> 00:36:44,905 Dan became aware that there was a potential whistleblower 578 00:36:44,985 --> 00:36:46,985 who had a lot of information 579 00:36:47,065 --> 00:36:50,025 and was very keen to speak to us as soon as possible. 580 00:36:57,545 --> 00:37:00,785 The first meeting was at Changi Airport. 581 00:37:01,865 --> 00:37:04,945 Going in, I knew very little of who I was meeting. 582 00:37:05,025 --> 00:37:07,705 I was definitely very cautious. 583 00:37:10,025 --> 00:37:12,465 I found out his real name is Pav. 584 00:37:14,225 --> 00:37:17,585 He'd been the head of legal for Asia at Wirecard. 585 00:37:17,665 --> 00:37:19,865 He had recently left the company 586 00:37:19,945 --> 00:37:24,745 and was full of frustration and anger 587 00:37:24,825 --> 00:37:28,065 in terms of what he had witnessed. 588 00:37:29,105 --> 00:37:34,065 It was an extremely intense conversation that lasted hours. 589 00:37:34,145 --> 00:37:40,425 I realized the overwhelming volume of information that he had. 590 00:37:41,025 --> 00:37:44,225 -[phone rings] -I immediately gave Dan a call and said, 591 00:37:44,305 --> 00:37:46,745 "This could be immense for us." 592 00:37:46,825 --> 00:37:49,705 [laughs] "I hope that all of this checks out 593 00:37:49,785 --> 00:37:53,105 because if it does, we're just sitting on gold." 594 00:37:53,665 --> 00:37:54,985 [Dan] Okay. Holy shit. 595 00:37:55,065 --> 00:37:58,185 This sounds like the real deal. I think I need to come to Singapore. 596 00:37:58,265 --> 00:38:00,265 [suspenseful music plays] 597 00:38:09,705 --> 00:38:13,065 We met out in the open underneath Wirecard's old building. 598 00:38:14,065 --> 00:38:18,385 We were extremely paranoid about Wirecard's hacking capabilities. 599 00:38:19,665 --> 00:38:23,185 We sort of relied on the fact that the fountain covered the noise. 600 00:38:24,865 --> 00:38:28,545 And he literally starts drawing diagrams of how Wirecard works 601 00:38:28,625 --> 00:38:30,145 and who the people are. 602 00:38:31,145 --> 00:38:34,065 And then he explained how he started working for Wirecard, 603 00:38:34,145 --> 00:38:37,265 he gets contacted by this woman on the finance team, 604 00:38:37,345 --> 00:38:39,585 and she tells him this incredible story. 605 00:38:41,465 --> 00:38:44,585 She'd been called into a room in the Wirecard offices 606 00:38:44,665 --> 00:38:46,225 with the rest of the finance team. 607 00:38:46,305 --> 00:38:49,465 And her boss is this Indonesian guy called Edo Kurniawan. 608 00:38:50,145 --> 00:38:52,945 And he's really young for the job. He's only 33. 609 00:38:53,025 --> 00:38:56,345 And if you looked at his CV, there's basically nothing there. 610 00:38:56,425 --> 00:38:59,465 But somehow he's running the Asian finance team, 611 00:38:59,545 --> 00:39:00,905 and that is, by the way, 612 00:39:00,985 --> 00:39:03,665 a very significant portion of Wirecard's business. 613 00:39:04,705 --> 00:39:07,145 So this woman goes into the meeting, 614 00:39:07,225 --> 00:39:11,265 and suddenly, what Edo does, is he starts drawing on a whiteboard. 615 00:39:11,345 --> 00:39:14,105 And he's explaining how they're gonna cook the books. 616 00:39:14,185 --> 00:39:16,265 Almost like that scene where they're like, 617 00:39:16,345 --> 00:39:18,585 "Here's the bank and you guys will go in here, 618 00:39:18,665 --> 00:39:20,585 and the van will be waiting outside." 619 00:39:20,665 --> 00:39:21,865 Like a bank job. 620 00:39:21,945 --> 00:39:26,145 And so she goes and tells Pav, the lawyer in Singapore, about it. 621 00:39:26,865 --> 00:39:29,745 Immediately Pav says, "Right. We better look into this." 622 00:39:30,465 --> 00:39:31,785 Within a matter of weeks, 623 00:39:31,865 --> 00:39:34,665 there's a full-blown internal investigation going on. 624 00:39:34,745 --> 00:39:36,745 [suspenseful music continues] 625 00:39:38,745 --> 00:39:41,265 None of Wirecard's top brass know anything about it. 626 00:39:41,345 --> 00:39:45,065 And they start finding all of these dodgy transactions. 627 00:39:45,585 --> 00:39:50,785 So, Pav put together this presentation for the key guys in Germany. 628 00:39:51,865 --> 00:39:53,305 "Look at what we found." 629 00:39:55,825 --> 00:39:58,385 Suddenly the message comes back from Munich, 630 00:39:58,465 --> 00:40:00,505 "Good work, guys. We'll take it from here." 631 00:40:02,105 --> 00:40:04,945 "Yeah. So we're gonna put Jan Marsalek in charge of it." 632 00:40:06,905 --> 00:40:10,705 It becomes clear very soon that nothing's gonna happen. 633 00:40:12,745 --> 00:40:15,065 And then Pav gets forced out, 634 00:40:15,145 --> 00:40:20,145 but he takes copies of the inbox of this guy Edo 635 00:40:21,425 --> 00:40:22,585 and gives it to us. 636 00:40:24,625 --> 00:40:26,145 Seventy gigs worth of data. 637 00:40:35,265 --> 00:40:37,785 [camera shutter clicking] 638 00:40:38,425 --> 00:40:42,745 As soon as I got back from Singapore, we knew we had to think about security. 639 00:40:43,265 --> 00:40:45,345 [camera shutter clicking] 640 00:40:46,865 --> 00:40:50,785 [Paul] We were very aware that Wirecard was spying on us. 641 00:40:52,985 --> 00:40:55,305 Dan had to operate in complete secrecy. 642 00:40:56,625 --> 00:40:59,425 [Dan] We were basically acting on the basis 643 00:41:00,065 --> 00:41:02,305 that anything on the FT network 644 00:41:02,385 --> 00:41:04,345 was at risk of being compromised. 645 00:41:06,265 --> 00:41:09,265 [Paul] We got Dan set up with an air-gapped laptop, 646 00:41:09,345 --> 00:41:13,105 which had the modem ripped out so that it can't be hacked. 647 00:41:14,305 --> 00:41:20,745 So this pile of documents from Pav, that went on the super-secure laptop. 648 00:41:21,265 --> 00:41:24,185 So every morning, I have to sign out the key to the big safe. 649 00:41:24,705 --> 00:41:28,625 The key was about that long, which gives you a sense of how big the safe was. 650 00:41:28,705 --> 00:41:30,105 It was like a giant fridge. 651 00:41:31,465 --> 00:41:34,585 Get out the laptop and the files that I'm working on, 652 00:41:36,385 --> 00:41:38,305 then go into my own little bunker. 653 00:41:38,825 --> 00:41:42,385 A little room in the middle of the building in the FT… 654 00:41:44,305 --> 00:41:46,665 and start going through the material we've got. 655 00:41:47,185 --> 00:41:49,625 [suspenseful music plays] 656 00:41:55,705 --> 00:41:58,305 Six weeks of every day, laptop out the safe, 657 00:41:59,105 --> 00:42:02,785 go through all the emails, print them off, try and work out what's going on. 658 00:42:04,265 --> 00:42:07,425 Okay, right. That's the time. Close it down again. Back in the safe. 659 00:42:08,265 --> 00:42:10,705 -Start again the next day. -[train brakes screeching] 660 00:42:14,225 --> 00:42:16,985 I was just following trails through the emails. 661 00:42:20,025 --> 00:42:24,265 Sticking keyword searches into Outlook, like "India," "Marsalek." 662 00:42:25,705 --> 00:42:28,665 I had been puzzling about this company for years 663 00:42:28,745 --> 00:42:29,585 and suddenly… 664 00:42:31,105 --> 00:42:32,585 it was like I was inside. 665 00:42:38,545 --> 00:42:41,065 I was also trying to get Jan Marsalek. 666 00:42:43,225 --> 00:42:44,305 I'd never met him. 667 00:42:44,385 --> 00:42:47,305 I'd never spoken to him, but I knew he was the enemy. 668 00:42:49,025 --> 00:42:52,625 I just was looking for anything to try and tie him 669 00:42:52,705 --> 00:42:54,265 to what had happened in Singapore. 670 00:42:58,545 --> 00:43:01,185 I could sort of see he was always at the edge of it. 671 00:43:01,265 --> 00:43:04,705 Like he was involved, but I couldn't quite prove it. 672 00:43:04,785 --> 00:43:06,785 [suspenseful music intensifies] 673 00:43:08,625 --> 00:43:13,345 But what we can do is we can boil it just down to Edo Kurniawan, 674 00:43:13,425 --> 00:43:15,585 this guy in the finance team. 675 00:43:16,745 --> 00:43:18,785 [suspenseful music ends] 676 00:43:18,865 --> 00:43:22,985 But if Wirecard had fired this guy, Edo, then we didn't have a story. 677 00:43:25,985 --> 00:43:28,385 [phone dials] 678 00:43:32,305 --> 00:43:38,545 [Dan talks] 679 00:43:39,025 --> 00:43:40,145 [Edo talks] 680 00:43:40,225 --> 00:43:42,705 [Dan talks] 681 00:43:52,705 --> 00:43:54,185 [Edo talks] 682 00:44:04,545 --> 00:44:05,585 [Dan talks] 683 00:44:05,665 --> 00:44:06,505 [Edo talks] 684 00:44:08,345 --> 00:44:11,505 [Dan] Edo was there, and he was working on the audit. 685 00:44:11,585 --> 00:44:12,905 It had to be a cover-up. 686 00:44:12,985 --> 00:44:14,945 [uptempo tense music plays] 687 00:44:21,465 --> 00:44:22,985 [Dan] It goes up online. 688 00:44:24,585 --> 00:44:27,665 Within seconds, the Wirecard share price crashes. 689 00:44:27,745 --> 00:44:29,665 In the space of three days, 690 00:44:29,745 --> 00:44:33,545 we've knocked eight billion euros off the value of the company. 691 00:44:34,065 --> 00:44:35,465 Holy shit. The story's working. 692 00:44:36,105 --> 00:44:38,625 [Stefania] That was the first moment 693 00:44:38,705 --> 00:44:42,705 where I felt that this could get really ugly. 694 00:44:42,785 --> 00:44:44,505 [uptempo tense music ends] 695 00:44:51,465 --> 00:44:57,225 [Florian in German] I only heard about the Financial Times' coverage secondhand. 696 00:44:57,305 --> 00:44:58,385 NEW ATTACK ON WIRECARD 697 00:44:58,465 --> 00:45:00,105 It was the typical bias. 698 00:45:00,185 --> 00:45:04,105 They said, "It is a foreign conspiracy against a German company." 699 00:45:04,185 --> 00:45:07,265 "A German company is the victim and must be protected." 700 00:45:09,105 --> 00:45:13,225 Wirecard had hired a famous lawyer in Bavaria. 701 00:45:15,385 --> 00:45:20,545 The lawyer said to the public prosecutor, Baumler-Hosl, 702 00:45:20,625 --> 00:45:24,265 that Wirecard is under attack by short sellers 703 00:45:24,345 --> 00:45:26,425 and its very existence is in jeopardy. 704 00:45:27,225 --> 00:45:31,145 [Lena] Hildegard Baumler-Hosl contacted the German financial regulator. 705 00:45:31,225 --> 00:45:35,625 The regulator BaFin then said, "We need to protect Wirecard." 706 00:45:35,705 --> 00:45:39,145 And banned short-selling of Wirecard shares. 707 00:45:39,225 --> 00:45:44,145 And even filed criminal charges against Dan McCrum and Stefania Palma. 708 00:45:48,385 --> 00:45:52,225 [in English] And I was shocked, and I called Dan immediately and I said, 709 00:45:52,305 --> 00:45:55,105 "Dan, what the hell is going on? What is this?" 710 00:45:55,185 --> 00:45:57,225 [tense music plays] 711 00:45:57,305 --> 00:45:59,305 [Dan] BaFin, the German Financial Regulator, 712 00:45:59,385 --> 00:46:00,425 comes out and goes, 713 00:46:00,505 --> 00:46:02,945 "We're going to look into market manipulation." 714 00:46:04,945 --> 00:46:06,625 What does that mean that they have? 715 00:46:06,705 --> 00:46:10,545 Because we haven't been contacted by them, we didn't know what the evidence was. 716 00:46:10,625 --> 00:46:14,225 So it's like, "Well, okay. What's been cooked up to say I'm a crook?" 717 00:46:14,305 --> 00:46:17,465 Because I just don't understand what's happening here. 718 00:46:17,545 --> 00:46:23,145 I think at the very beginning, I just truly could not believe that 719 00:46:23,225 --> 00:46:27,505 after all the work we'd done, that we would become the targets. 720 00:46:30,065 --> 00:46:32,825 When you have the regulator one of 721 00:46:32,905 --> 00:46:34,985 the most powerful financial markets in Europe 722 00:46:35,065 --> 00:46:38,705 sending a very clear sign that they're coming for you, 723 00:46:38,785 --> 00:46:41,465 you can either let that get to you, 724 00:46:41,545 --> 00:46:46,385 or you try to sort of channel all that rage and frustration 725 00:46:46,465 --> 00:46:47,945 into the investigation, 726 00:46:48,025 --> 00:46:51,745 really hitting the story, you know, the hardest you ever have. 727 00:46:52,945 --> 00:46:55,585 And I think you know which option we went for. 728 00:46:55,665 --> 00:46:58,585 [suspenseful music plays] 729 00:47:04,785 --> 00:47:07,905 [Dan] I'm back in London in the bunker, carrying on working. 730 00:47:08,665 --> 00:47:11,465 I'd been looking through Wirecard's customers, 731 00:47:11,545 --> 00:47:14,705 and I started to realize hundreds of millions of euros 732 00:47:14,785 --> 00:47:16,185 of Wirecard's business 733 00:47:16,905 --> 00:47:19,385 were provided by just these three partners. 734 00:47:20,945 --> 00:47:24,985 Al Alam, Senjo, and PayEasy. 735 00:47:26,065 --> 00:47:29,425 [Stefania] At that point in time, these three partner businesses contributed 736 00:47:29,505 --> 00:47:33,465 to something like half of Wirecard's global sales. 737 00:47:33,545 --> 00:47:36,265 One of these partner businesses was in the Philippines. 738 00:47:36,345 --> 00:47:38,505 Uh, a business called PayEasy. 739 00:47:38,585 --> 00:47:40,585 [suspenseful music intensifies] 740 00:47:46,865 --> 00:47:52,265 [Dan] On paper, PayEasy was this very important business to Wirecard. 741 00:47:52,345 --> 00:47:55,665 We say to Stefania, "We need to find out what is going on. Is this real?" 742 00:47:57,905 --> 00:48:02,945 [Stefania] I remember going to this office covered with logos of both PayEasy 743 00:48:03,025 --> 00:48:06,425 and a bus company called Fröhlich Tours. 744 00:48:10,465 --> 00:48:12,665 There were drivers coming in and out. 745 00:48:12,745 --> 00:48:15,425 It was clear that the day-to-day operations 746 00:48:15,505 --> 00:48:17,745 were, in fact, just the bus company. 747 00:48:18,825 --> 00:48:21,025 This looks fishy. 748 00:48:24,625 --> 00:48:27,305 I ended up driving three hours north of Manila 749 00:48:27,385 --> 00:48:30,985 in this region that is actually famous for rice fields, 750 00:48:32,185 --> 00:48:36,785 chasing after a company called ConePay, another partner business for Wirecard. 751 00:48:40,585 --> 00:48:43,225 And we finally find this address. 752 00:48:44,825 --> 00:48:46,065 Someone's house. 753 00:48:47,025 --> 00:48:49,425 [suspenseful music ends] 754 00:48:49,505 --> 00:48:51,945 This middle-aged man opened the door, 755 00:48:52,025 --> 00:48:57,305 and the first thing I see is a table with a brown Pomeranian 756 00:48:58,465 --> 00:49:00,585 and a small white dog. 757 00:49:01,905 --> 00:49:04,625 There were a couple of middle-aged Filipino men 758 00:49:04,705 --> 00:49:07,505 who were just grooming these dogs. [laughs] 759 00:49:07,585 --> 00:49:11,465 Is this the headquarters of a payments company? [laughs] 760 00:49:13,305 --> 00:49:17,025 It was obvious we were standing in the middle of a family home, 761 00:49:17,105 --> 00:49:19,945 at which point someone remembers, 762 00:49:20,025 --> 00:49:22,705 "Wait. We got this in the mail," 763 00:49:22,785 --> 00:49:25,745 and they hand me an envelope. 764 00:49:27,105 --> 00:49:32,065 I take the paper out and immediately see Wirecard Bank letterhead, 765 00:49:33,225 --> 00:49:34,265 ConePay, 766 00:49:35,425 --> 00:49:37,785 and the address where we were standing. 767 00:49:39,425 --> 00:49:42,265 I froze completely, and I remember shaking 768 00:49:42,345 --> 00:49:47,145 because I knew at that point that we had cracked the whole thing. 769 00:49:49,945 --> 00:49:51,665 [uptempo suspenseful music plays] 770 00:49:55,225 --> 00:49:57,905 [Dan] I'd spent years trying to solve this puzzle. 771 00:50:00,505 --> 00:50:03,265 What is the deal with Wirecard's business? 772 00:50:03,345 --> 00:50:05,385 Is it doing all this money laundering? 773 00:50:06,185 --> 00:50:07,825 Is it juicing its profits? 774 00:50:10,025 --> 00:50:11,625 And suddenly, you're like, 775 00:50:12,865 --> 00:50:13,945 "Holy shit." 776 00:50:14,465 --> 00:50:17,465 "The whole thing's fake. None of it's real." 777 00:50:18,065 --> 00:50:20,025 It's just this incredible bluff. 778 00:50:22,185 --> 00:50:24,265 [uptempo suspenseful music intensifies] 779 00:50:26,505 --> 00:50:28,825 They came up with this deepfake… 780 00:50:31,625 --> 00:50:34,465 where they were using these three business partners 781 00:50:34,545 --> 00:50:36,745 to just invent a whole load of business. 782 00:50:38,105 --> 00:50:40,905 From the outside, it looked like a real company. 783 00:50:40,985 --> 00:50:43,145 Thousands of people thought they were working 784 00:50:43,225 --> 00:50:45,465 on a legitimate enterprise. 785 00:50:46,065 --> 00:50:47,545 It was the emperor's new clothes. 786 00:50:50,905 --> 00:50:52,905 [reporter 1] There's been a fresh report from the FT, 787 00:50:52,985 --> 00:50:56,385 and they're talking about half of your worldwide revenue 788 00:50:56,465 --> 00:50:59,025 and almost all of your reported profits 789 00:50:59,105 --> 00:51:03,185 effectively coming from three opaque partner companies 790 00:51:03,265 --> 00:51:04,345 in recent years. 791 00:51:04,425 --> 00:51:08,425 We do not get distracted by all of this noise. 792 00:51:08,505 --> 00:51:11,945 [in German] This financial thriller continues with the latest punch-up 793 00:51:12,025 --> 00:51:14,145 between Wirecard and the Financial Times. 794 00:51:14,745 --> 00:51:17,625 [Martin in English] Dan McCrum, for us, was the devil. 795 00:51:17,705 --> 00:51:21,545 He kept on bringing things out that made the stock price go down. 796 00:51:22,665 --> 00:51:25,905 [reporter 2 in German] In February, there were new articles and allegations 797 00:51:25,985 --> 00:51:27,745 and the share price fell again. 798 00:51:28,905 --> 00:51:31,905 At the end of March, new accusations were published 799 00:51:31,985 --> 00:51:34,345 and the share price collapsed once again. 800 00:51:34,425 --> 00:51:37,785 A BILLIONAIRE ON THE DEFENSIVE 801 00:51:37,865 --> 00:51:40,945 [Martin in English] Senior management at Wirecard very quickly said 802 00:51:41,025 --> 00:51:44,745 that the basis of this report was completely without merit. 803 00:51:44,825 --> 00:51:47,105 [in German] There is a claim that the Financial Times 804 00:51:47,185 --> 00:51:50,985 deliberately caused the fall in the Wirecard share price 805 00:51:51,065 --> 00:51:53,305 so that speculators could cash in. 806 00:51:55,345 --> 00:51:58,265 [Martin in English] We thought Dan McCrum was making a quick buck. 807 00:51:58,785 --> 00:52:01,505 They were the bad guys, and we were the good guys. 808 00:52:02,105 --> 00:52:04,665 -[man in German] Sound running. -Okay. Let's start. 809 00:52:05,305 --> 00:52:10,905 How do you personally go about scandals, confusion, chaos? 810 00:52:10,985 --> 00:52:12,945 Have you ever thought about resigning? 811 00:52:13,025 --> 00:52:15,025 [chuckles] I've never thought about resignation. 812 00:52:15,105 --> 00:52:17,865 Can you exclude the possibility of more dirty laundry airing 813 00:52:17,945 --> 00:52:19,945 that will put the share price under pressure? 814 00:52:20,025 --> 00:52:23,145 We firmly reject these serious allegations. 815 00:52:23,225 --> 00:52:28,785 We think these allegations are mainly market speculations. 816 00:52:30,305 --> 00:52:33,425 [Paul in English] At that point, the FT had run a series 817 00:52:33,505 --> 00:52:36,705 of really quite damaging allegations, 818 00:52:36,785 --> 00:52:40,785 but Wirecard's share price just seemed to go up and up and up. 819 00:52:40,865 --> 00:52:42,585 People loved the company. 820 00:52:42,665 --> 00:52:45,465 [reporter 3 in German] At the Frankfurt stock exchange, 821 00:52:45,545 --> 00:52:49,705 Wirecard has announced its annual results, increasing its profits by 35%, 822 00:52:49,785 --> 00:52:52,425 an increase of €350 million, 823 00:52:52,505 --> 00:52:55,065 and says it will continue to grow this year. 824 00:52:55,145 --> 00:52:58,065 [reporter 4 in English] Following a move from the payments giant Wirecard, 825 00:52:58,145 --> 00:52:59,825 shares jumping more than 6% there 826 00:52:59,905 --> 00:53:02,545 after the company landed a one-billion-dollar investment 827 00:53:02,625 --> 00:53:04,865 from Japan's SoftBank group. 828 00:53:04,945 --> 00:53:09,825 SoftBank investing a billion dollars in German FinTech company Wirecard. 829 00:53:09,905 --> 00:53:13,425 [Paul] When news of the SoftBank investment emerged, 830 00:53:13,505 --> 00:53:14,425 we were dumbfounded. 831 00:53:14,505 --> 00:53:16,505 [reporter 5] In exchange for a 6% stake, 832 00:53:16,585 --> 00:53:20,105 SoftBank will help the firm expand to Japan and South Korea. 833 00:53:20,185 --> 00:53:21,425 [Paul] We couldn't believe it. 834 00:53:21,505 --> 00:53:24,905 You know, we had put what we thought was clear evidence 835 00:53:24,985 --> 00:53:27,225 that this was a fraud on the table. 836 00:53:27,825 --> 00:53:32,985 But SoftBank were about to give this company 900 million euros. 837 00:53:36,865 --> 00:53:39,745 At that point with Dan, I started discussing 838 00:53:39,825 --> 00:53:44,985 how we were going to actually present evidence that was overwhelming. 839 00:53:47,585 --> 00:53:49,385 This is a criminal enterprise. 840 00:53:50,745 --> 00:53:54,985 So, Wirecard had to do something… to stop us. 841 00:53:55,785 --> 00:53:58,945 [phone rings] 842 00:53:59,025 --> 00:54:01,585 [Dan] The next day, I get a letter from Wirecard saying, 843 00:54:01,665 --> 00:54:05,225 "We've got this tape recording of this guy called Nick Gold, 844 00:54:05,305 --> 00:54:07,745 and he knows that the FT story is coming, 845 00:54:07,825 --> 00:54:11,545 and you're clearly in cahoots, and you're corrupt." 846 00:54:11,625 --> 00:54:13,625 [tense music plays] 847 00:54:15,265 --> 00:54:18,545 My first thought was, "Okay. Uh, this has to be a setup." 848 00:54:19,945 --> 00:54:22,865 "This has got to be Marsalek's dirty tricks again." 849 00:54:22,945 --> 00:54:26,665 [Nick talks] 850 00:54:37,945 --> 00:54:39,545 I had no idea who Nick Gold was. 851 00:54:40,505 --> 00:54:42,505 [mischievous music plays] 852 00:54:48,105 --> 00:54:49,105 [Nick] I am Nick Gold. 853 00:54:49,185 --> 00:54:50,785 Catch! That's it! 854 00:54:50,865 --> 00:54:51,865 I'm an investor. 855 00:54:52,385 --> 00:54:54,425 A bad investor, but an investor. 856 00:54:56,785 --> 00:54:59,265 [Paul] I first met Nick Gold by chance. 857 00:55:00,465 --> 00:55:05,985 Gary Kilbey was having drinks to celebrate his 60th birthday, 858 00:55:06,065 --> 00:55:07,865 and Nick Gold was there. 859 00:55:07,945 --> 00:55:09,465 [men laugh] 860 00:55:09,545 --> 00:55:12,705 [Nick] I remember Paul Murphy. We were both getting drunk together. 861 00:55:12,785 --> 00:55:16,585 He told me if I needed a journalist, and I had a story to report, he was one. 862 00:55:16,665 --> 00:55:18,785 Drink as much as you can take, here! 863 00:55:18,865 --> 00:55:20,225 [men cheer] 864 00:55:20,305 --> 00:55:24,185 [Nick] And I phoned him months later, and said, "Can I see you?" 865 00:55:24,265 --> 00:55:27,625 He says, "I can't do it for two weeks, 'cause I'm stuck on Wirecard." 866 00:55:27,705 --> 00:55:29,625 The minute he said, "I'm stuck on Wirecard," 867 00:55:29,705 --> 00:55:31,345 I knew this was a no-brainer scenario. 868 00:55:31,425 --> 00:55:33,585 He'll bring something out. It can't be positive, 869 00:55:33,665 --> 00:55:35,145 therefore this is free money. 870 00:55:35,905 --> 00:55:38,225 I have to short-sell this company within an inch of my life. 871 00:55:38,305 --> 00:55:41,585 Which I did to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of millions. 872 00:55:44,905 --> 00:55:47,865 I've now taken a huge short position in Wirecard, 873 00:55:47,945 --> 00:55:49,345 which is probably known to them. 874 00:55:49,425 --> 00:55:51,265 They're going to see who the big shorts are. 875 00:55:51,785 --> 00:55:54,145 So they now know Nick Gold is a massive short seller. 876 00:55:58,505 --> 00:56:00,785 I'm then on a beach in Cannes, 877 00:56:01,385 --> 00:56:03,865 dancing on tables and being a lunatic as I am, 878 00:56:03,945 --> 00:56:05,385 and having a great time. 879 00:56:06,505 --> 00:56:08,905 And somebody comes up to me that I haven't seen in years. 880 00:56:08,985 --> 00:56:09,905 He's a football agent. 881 00:56:09,985 --> 00:56:11,985 I've known him forever. He worked for me years ago, 882 00:56:12,065 --> 00:56:14,945 and he says he's now gotten the Kuwaiti National Investment Fund 883 00:56:15,025 --> 00:56:17,505 and they're his partners and he's got billions of pounds, 884 00:56:17,585 --> 00:56:19,225 they'd like to invest in the stock market. 885 00:56:19,305 --> 00:56:20,705 So could I help? 886 00:56:20,785 --> 00:56:23,505 [siren wailing] 887 00:56:23,585 --> 00:56:28,105 A few days later, I fly back to London to meet the Kuwaiti Investment Fund. 888 00:56:31,105 --> 00:56:33,585 Well, what happened is a magnificent sheikh walked in 889 00:56:33,665 --> 00:56:36,585 and his spokesperson next to him walked in with my football guy, 890 00:56:36,665 --> 00:56:38,105 and they sat down. 891 00:56:38,185 --> 00:56:40,945 'Cause I'm with my friend, I thought I could speak openly. 892 00:56:41,025 --> 00:56:44,505 I then tell him there are billions to be made short selling Wirecard. 893 00:56:45,025 --> 00:56:46,945 And I know the company's going down 894 00:56:47,025 --> 00:56:49,385 because the Financial Times are writing an article, 895 00:56:49,465 --> 00:56:50,825 and the company is fraudulent, 896 00:56:51,465 --> 00:56:53,865 and that we were going to build great big ships together. 897 00:56:53,945 --> 00:56:56,345 [tense music plays] 898 00:56:56,425 --> 00:56:59,305 This was as sheikh as you get. He stank of affluence. 899 00:56:59,385 --> 00:57:02,425 The man stank of money. You could tell this is a proper sheikh. 900 00:57:02,505 --> 00:57:03,865 As it turns out, I was wrong. 901 00:57:03,945 --> 00:57:06,385 [tense music intensifies] 902 00:57:06,465 --> 00:57:10,305 The sheikh left, and the guys stayed to facilitate for the sheikh, 903 00:57:10,385 --> 00:57:12,025 and I was left with those two. 904 00:57:12,785 --> 00:57:14,905 -Hey. I'm Nick Gold. -[man 1] Hello, Nick. How are you? 905 00:57:14,985 --> 00:57:18,065 [Nick] What sort of size business were you thinking of doing? 906 00:57:18,145 --> 00:57:20,625 [man 1] At the moment, they are looking at investing €50 million. 907 00:57:20,705 --> 00:57:21,545 [Nick] Okay. 908 00:57:22,305 --> 00:57:25,225 [man 2 in German] There was a short seller, Nick Gold, 909 00:57:25,305 --> 00:57:30,945 who met with an investor who secretly recorded him. 910 00:57:31,465 --> 00:57:33,985 [Nick in English] This is as good as it gets in terms of-- 911 00:57:34,065 --> 00:57:36,105 -We know the article's coming. -[man 1] Okay. 912 00:57:36,185 --> 00:57:37,745 [Nick] And I bet it's gonna be today. 913 00:57:38,225 --> 00:57:41,345 [in German] We know now that this investor was actually a private detective 914 00:57:41,425 --> 00:57:46,825 who was hired by someone associated with Wirecard. 915 00:57:48,185 --> 00:57:50,505 [man 1 talks in English] 916 00:57:50,585 --> 00:57:51,825 [Nick talks] 917 00:57:51,905 --> 00:57:52,905 [man 1 talks] 918 00:57:52,985 --> 00:57:57,105 [Nick talks] 919 00:57:57,625 --> 00:58:00,185 [man 1 talks] 920 00:58:00,265 --> 00:58:01,745 [Nick talks] 921 00:58:01,825 --> 00:58:02,905 [man 1 talks] 922 00:58:06,545 --> 00:58:09,705 So what Wirecard did was-- The sheikh wasn't real. It was fake. 923 00:58:10,505 --> 00:58:12,905 The friend of mine, that paid the guy four million, 924 00:58:12,985 --> 00:58:15,785 he got my four million by the way, that bastard. 925 00:58:15,865 --> 00:58:18,865 Then I got a text message from Paul Murphy saying, 926 00:58:18,945 --> 00:58:20,545 "What the fuck have you done?" 927 00:58:21,625 --> 00:58:23,665 [Paul] This was a complete setup. 928 00:58:24,785 --> 00:58:26,745 Oh, I was furious, absolutely furious 929 00:58:26,825 --> 00:58:31,465 because Wirecard's found a way of presenting evidence 930 00:58:31,545 --> 00:58:35,545 that appeared to show that I personally was in cahoots 931 00:58:35,625 --> 00:58:39,025 with a guy who was making money shorting the stock. 932 00:58:43,185 --> 00:58:47,945 [Paul] Within hours, all this detail is in the hands of the German press, 933 00:58:48,025 --> 00:58:49,985 who are writing articles saying, 934 00:58:50,065 --> 00:58:53,345 "Here's clear evidence that the FT's corrupt." 935 00:58:55,745 --> 00:58:59,025 [Lionel] I was pretty pissed off, actually. Pretty pissed off. 936 00:58:59,105 --> 00:59:01,825 I was confident that we'd been set up, 937 00:59:01,905 --> 00:59:05,625 but I have to protect the reputation of the FT. 938 00:59:05,705 --> 00:59:09,225 You know, I thought, "Paul you're a brilliant reporter, 939 00:59:09,305 --> 00:59:11,425 but you've done something really dumb." 940 00:59:11,505 --> 00:59:13,945 "You're gonna have to spend time in the sin bin." 941 00:59:15,105 --> 00:59:19,385 And that meant a rigorous external legal investigation 942 00:59:19,465 --> 00:59:22,665 to show the world that there was no truth in that. 943 00:59:24,265 --> 00:59:27,185 [Dan] That was the first time that I really felt vulnerable. 944 00:59:27,705 --> 00:59:29,385 You know, we were basically suspended. 945 00:59:30,345 --> 00:59:33,545 So we have to sit and wait for this investigation to happen. 946 00:59:34,465 --> 00:59:36,985 But then the story gets weirder and weirder. 947 00:59:37,065 --> 00:59:39,985 [tense music plays] 948 00:59:44,665 --> 00:59:47,025 [in German] I'm Jorg Schmitt from the Süddeutsche Zeitung. 949 00:59:47,945 --> 00:59:50,945 I'm the chief editor of the investigations team. 950 00:59:51,465 --> 00:59:56,345 I was at my desk when I suddenly got a call from an unknown number. 951 00:59:57,265 --> 00:59:59,825 On the other end was a young woman. 952 00:59:59,905 --> 01:00:02,025 She said, "Are you interested in Wirecard?" 953 01:00:03,265 --> 01:00:05,705 "Do you know Prinzregentenstrasse 61?" 954 01:00:05,785 --> 01:00:09,065 "It's the secret office of Jan Marsalek." 955 01:00:09,905 --> 01:00:13,065 Even colleagues closest to Marsalek didn't know 956 01:00:13,145 --> 01:00:16,345 that there was this second office in the Prinzregentenstrasse. 957 01:00:17,105 --> 01:00:21,945 He would meet with a very illustrious circle of people, 958 01:00:22,025 --> 01:00:25,785 do business, and host wild parties. 959 01:00:25,865 --> 01:00:27,585 [tense music continues] 960 01:00:27,665 --> 01:00:31,585 It's Marsalek's boy gang, I'd say. 961 01:00:31,665 --> 01:00:33,145 We always find Martin W., 962 01:00:33,225 --> 01:00:36,465 who had been in the Austrian secret service. 963 01:00:36,545 --> 01:00:41,425 El-Obeidi, a former Libyan intelligence officer. 964 01:00:41,945 --> 01:00:48,865 Stani, a Russian who was supposedly in Munich visiting his sick mother, 965 01:00:48,945 --> 01:00:55,145 but we think he was probably an FSB man, a Russian secret-service agent. 966 01:00:56,145 --> 01:01:02,825 So suddenly we had three former intelligence agents 967 01:01:02,905 --> 01:01:07,505 who were in and around the Prinzregentenstrasse. 968 01:01:07,585 --> 01:01:11,745 And the thing is the Prinzregentenstrasse is not just anywhere in Munich. 969 01:01:11,825 --> 01:01:15,025 It is directly opposite the Russian consulate. 970 01:01:16,785 --> 01:01:19,505 There is obviously a secret-service connection. 971 01:01:20,625 --> 01:01:22,185 That electrified me. 972 01:01:23,665 --> 01:01:28,705 Why might Marsalek be so interesting to intelligence agencies? 973 01:01:31,265 --> 01:01:33,065 Wirecard is a company 974 01:01:33,145 --> 01:01:35,985 through which there are billions of transactions every year. 975 01:01:36,625 --> 01:01:40,225 And these payments are gold mines for the secret services 976 01:01:40,305 --> 01:01:43,705 because they show who could be compromised 977 01:01:43,785 --> 01:01:47,985 because their creditcard information could show porn usage, 978 01:01:48,065 --> 01:01:50,025 brothel visits, or whatever else. 979 01:01:52,425 --> 01:01:54,185 To have a source like Marsalek 980 01:01:54,265 --> 01:01:56,745 who is always on the move around the world, 981 01:01:56,825 --> 01:01:58,665 that makes a lot of sense. 982 01:01:58,745 --> 01:01:59,905 [tense music ends] 983 01:02:02,425 --> 01:02:04,945 [mischievous music plays] 984 01:02:10,105 --> 01:02:11,585 [cars honking] 985 01:02:19,665 --> 01:02:21,665 [man in English] When the news came through 986 01:02:21,745 --> 01:02:23,865 that Paul had been suspended, 987 01:02:23,945 --> 01:02:26,025 Paul pulled me aside and basically said, 988 01:02:26,105 --> 01:02:28,745 "Both Braun and Marsalek are Austrian." 989 01:02:28,825 --> 01:02:32,425 "Ask around. See what you can find in Vienna." 990 01:02:34,665 --> 01:02:37,065 Someone recommended this politician 991 01:02:37,145 --> 01:02:40,545 that was looking at all kinds of political-corruption stuff 992 01:02:40,625 --> 01:02:41,825 going on in Austria. 993 01:02:42,465 --> 01:02:43,825 Stephanie Krisper. 994 01:02:46,345 --> 01:02:50,145 [in German] Vienna is sadly mostly an inviting terrain 995 01:02:50,225 --> 01:02:52,305 for intelligence officers, 996 01:02:52,385 --> 01:02:57,105 for dubious characters, spies, economic spies. 997 01:03:00,585 --> 01:03:03,105 [Sam in English] We met on a boat in the Danube Canal. 998 01:03:03,185 --> 01:03:05,985 I just sort of said, "Do you know Jan Marsalek?" 999 01:03:07,625 --> 01:03:09,985 She sat back a bit and pondered. 1000 01:03:11,425 --> 01:03:13,665 She knew someone that knows Jan, 1001 01:03:14,385 --> 01:03:16,185 but she had to be very careful 1002 01:03:16,265 --> 01:03:19,985 because he was fearful of who Jan was involved with. 1003 01:03:20,065 --> 01:03:22,825 [indistinct chatter] 1004 01:03:22,905 --> 01:03:25,905 And so we arranged to meet him at Café Pruckel. 1005 01:03:28,425 --> 01:03:32,065 Stephanie walked in and introduced me to this friend of hers. 1006 01:03:32,825 --> 01:03:36,185 What followed were probably the most remarkable 20 minutes 1007 01:03:36,265 --> 01:03:39,625 in my short 14 years in journalism. 1008 01:03:39,705 --> 01:03:42,465 [tense music plays] 1009 01:03:43,585 --> 01:03:46,905 My name is Killian Kleinschmidt. I'm a German National. 1010 01:03:46,985 --> 01:03:52,305 I've been working with the United Nations on issues of migration and refugees. 1011 01:03:53,025 --> 01:03:54,785 I mean, that's something I know. 1012 01:03:54,865 --> 01:03:57,305 Um, how to deal with large numbers of people on the move. 1013 01:03:59,665 --> 01:04:03,145 2016, Austria is building up to the elections. 1014 01:04:03,225 --> 01:04:05,385 Um, I received an email 1015 01:04:05,465 --> 01:04:07,585 asking me whether I would be interested 1016 01:04:07,665 --> 01:04:10,345 to work on a project with Jan Marsalek. 1017 01:04:11,465 --> 01:04:13,345 I didn't know who that was. 1018 01:04:13,425 --> 01:04:15,785 I did not even know Wirecard. [chuckles] 1019 01:04:17,825 --> 01:04:21,185 A few days later, we met in the famous restaurant, 1020 01:04:21,265 --> 01:04:22,545 the Kafer in Munich. 1021 01:04:23,705 --> 01:04:25,825 Extremely eloquent, smiling, 1022 01:04:25,905 --> 01:04:29,385 the Austrian smart-ass, very smooth talker. 1023 01:04:29,465 --> 01:04:33,625 He stressed that he was very interested to do a project in Libya. 1024 01:04:33,705 --> 01:04:35,785 [tense music intensifies] 1025 01:04:35,865 --> 01:04:38,785 [reporter] Crossing the Sahara in search of a better life, 1026 01:04:38,865 --> 01:04:41,145 these migrants are bound for Europe. 1027 01:04:42,265 --> 01:04:44,745 And this is where their long ride begins, 1028 01:04:44,825 --> 01:04:47,385 several days' drive from the Libyan border. 1029 01:04:51,745 --> 01:04:56,025 He stressed this knowledge of Libya, where he said he had been several times, 1030 01:04:56,105 --> 01:04:57,705 but that his real interest 1031 01:04:57,785 --> 01:05:01,545 was really to contribute to the stabilization of Libya. 1032 01:05:03,385 --> 01:05:05,745 He presented himself as doing good work. 1033 01:05:06,505 --> 01:05:11,065 So we agreed that he would put in 200,000 euros to finance my team, 1034 01:05:11,145 --> 01:05:13,585 working with refugee camps in Libya. 1035 01:05:13,665 --> 01:05:14,745 [glasses clinking] 1036 01:05:15,825 --> 01:05:17,185 It was fantastic. We liked it. 1037 01:05:17,265 --> 01:05:19,385 [tense music continues] 1038 01:05:19,465 --> 01:05:22,105 The relationship with Marsalek was managed by two persons. 1039 01:05:23,185 --> 01:05:27,225 Wolfgang Gattringer, who used to work in the Austrian Ministry of Interior, 1040 01:05:27,825 --> 01:05:32,385 and Brigadier Gustenau from the Ministry of Defense of Austria. 1041 01:05:33,465 --> 01:05:36,145 Then popped up Colonel Andrey Chuprygin, 1042 01:05:36,225 --> 01:05:39,145 the former secret-service officer from Russia. 1043 01:05:39,905 --> 01:05:43,865 He is presented not only as the guy who works with Jan, 1044 01:05:43,945 --> 01:05:46,465 but also the guy who coordinates Russian interests 1045 01:05:46,545 --> 01:05:48,665 in the Middle East and North Africa. 1046 01:05:49,865 --> 01:05:51,985 There should have been alarm bells. 1047 01:05:54,305 --> 01:05:57,905 In mid-February, we meet Marsalek in the Prinzregentenstrasse, 1048 01:05:57,985 --> 01:06:01,225 just opposite the Russian General Consulate in Munich. 1049 01:06:02,945 --> 01:06:05,985 It's an empty place. It's an old building. 1050 01:06:08,665 --> 01:06:10,025 Nice pieces of art. 1051 01:06:21,185 --> 01:06:26,625 There is Marsalek talking to Gattringer and Gustenau and he said, 1052 01:06:26,705 --> 01:06:30,905 "I want to train and equip a border-guard force 1053 01:06:30,985 --> 01:06:34,345 of 15, maybe 20,000 men in Libya." 1054 01:06:36,545 --> 01:06:40,305 Basically preventing people in distress from crossing the border. 1055 01:06:41,625 --> 01:06:43,385 This is all very bad. 1056 01:06:45,465 --> 01:06:48,385 [Stephanie in German] Border security in Libya was a topic that, 1057 01:06:48,465 --> 01:06:53,545 for a COO of a company like Wirecard, wasn't normal in the slightest. 1058 01:06:54,665 --> 01:06:58,345 As time went on, I asked myself, "What does he want in Libya?" 1059 01:06:58,425 --> 01:07:01,665 "And why does he seem to be getting support 1060 01:07:01,745 --> 01:07:04,145 from within the Austrian government 1061 01:07:04,225 --> 01:07:07,665 for a project that doesn't have humanitarian aims?" 1062 01:07:08,905 --> 01:07:11,345 [Killian in English] For me, then that all clicked. 1063 01:07:11,425 --> 01:07:15,905 Migration is the theme which makes you win or lose elections in Europe. 1064 01:07:16,505 --> 01:07:19,945 [in German] If you ignore negative trends 1065 01:07:20,025 --> 01:07:23,265 or if you let immigration go unchecked, 1066 01:07:23,345 --> 01:07:25,785 things will go downhill very quickly. 1067 01:07:25,865 --> 01:07:29,345 [Killian in English] Jan Marsalek was acting as the in-between 1068 01:07:29,425 --> 01:07:32,025 for the Russians and for the right-wing populist parties. 1069 01:07:34,905 --> 01:07:37,585 [Stephanie in German] It is logical that if Russia 1070 01:07:37,665 --> 01:07:40,065 wants to destabilize Europe, 1071 01:07:41,145 --> 01:07:45,945 they would try to create anxiety over supposed waves of refugees 1072 01:07:46,025 --> 01:07:49,825 to create a narrative that heats the debate again. 1073 01:07:51,025 --> 01:07:53,825 Marsalek has very good contacts in Russia. 1074 01:07:55,385 --> 01:07:59,225 That's why it's plausible that Jan Marsalek could have been trying 1075 01:07:59,305 --> 01:08:01,505 to set something up for the Russians. 1076 01:08:04,665 --> 01:08:06,625 [steps approaching] 1077 01:08:06,705 --> 01:08:09,345 [Sam in English] My mind was going at a million miles an hour. 1078 01:08:09,425 --> 01:08:11,025 It was clearly bonkers. 1079 01:08:11,105 --> 01:08:15,705 The COO of a German company is not supposed to be involved 1080 01:08:15,785 --> 01:08:18,625 in encouraging disruptive right-wing parties 1081 01:08:18,705 --> 01:08:23,665 to capitalize on migration problems, or recruiting militiamen. 1082 01:08:25,225 --> 01:08:27,345 The idea would be crazy 1083 01:08:27,425 --> 01:08:30,785 were it not for the fact that I just felt it rang true. 1084 01:08:42,265 --> 01:08:45,225 [somber music plays] 1085 01:08:49,145 --> 01:08:51,425 [camera shutter clicking] 1086 01:08:51,505 --> 01:08:56,305 [Dan] So Sam starts finding about all these insane Russian links. 1087 01:08:57,265 --> 01:08:59,425 [camera zooming in] 1088 01:09:01,505 --> 01:09:02,945 [camera shutter clicking] 1089 01:09:04,305 --> 01:09:08,225 Now, we have to be, like, state-security-level paranoid. 1090 01:09:09,225 --> 01:09:11,305 We're not even putting anything in digital. 1091 01:09:11,385 --> 01:09:14,545 It all has to be handwritten, and don't talk on the phone. 1092 01:09:14,625 --> 01:09:15,945 [camera shutter clicking] 1093 01:09:16,545 --> 01:09:20,265 Paul heard about 28 private detectives 1094 01:09:20,345 --> 01:09:22,705 who were wandering around London, following people. 1095 01:09:23,505 --> 01:09:24,625 [Paul] I went after 1096 01:09:24,705 --> 01:09:27,945 the private investigators' spying operation. 1097 01:09:28,025 --> 01:09:33,225 That led us to discovering that the person bankrolling this operation 1098 01:09:33,305 --> 01:09:38,985 was a former Head of Foreign Intelligence for the Libyan transitionary government. 1099 01:09:39,985 --> 01:09:41,625 Rami el-Obeidi. 1100 01:09:43,585 --> 01:09:50,545 We did know that Marsalek had interests in Libya by that point. 1101 01:09:53,305 --> 01:09:57,585 [Dan] Whoever hears the words, "Libyan spy chief," and thinks, 1102 01:09:57,665 --> 01:09:59,825 "Oh, right. Yeah. That's totally fine"? 1103 01:10:02,025 --> 01:10:06,345 And so I'm sort of leaving the house looking for cameras, 1104 01:10:06,865 --> 01:10:10,025 leave the office at different times, catch different trains. 1105 01:10:10,105 --> 01:10:12,505 [tense music plays] 1106 01:10:12,585 --> 01:10:13,705 I'd be on the Tube, 1107 01:10:15,305 --> 01:10:18,865 you'd reach your stop and then you wait until just before the doors close. 1108 01:10:18,945 --> 01:10:21,265 Then I'd jump out and sort of like, 1109 01:10:21,345 --> 01:10:24,265 "Did anyone else get off with me as well?" 1110 01:10:26,025 --> 01:10:27,825 [tense music intensifies] 1111 01:10:28,785 --> 01:10:30,585 [camera shutter clicking] 1112 01:10:32,705 --> 01:10:34,345 [camera shutter clicking] 1113 01:10:38,865 --> 01:10:42,625 That was the moment when I felt nervous about my family. 1114 01:10:44,105 --> 01:10:48,025 This is Freddy McCrum, age three days. 1115 01:10:49,545 --> 01:10:50,825 That's what you worry about. 1116 01:10:50,905 --> 01:10:53,225 Because you'd do anything to protect your children. 1117 01:10:53,825 --> 01:10:58,025 And the idea that you would put them in danger for some story… 1118 01:10:59,105 --> 01:11:00,945 I mean, who wants to do that? 1119 01:11:03,225 --> 01:11:04,065 Um… 1120 01:11:05,985 --> 01:11:08,465 [Florian in German] It's criminal to wiretap journalists. 1121 01:11:08,545 --> 01:11:11,345 It's criminal to hack their email accounts. 1122 01:11:12,025 --> 01:11:18,545 The worst part was that this intimidation was quite successful. 1123 01:11:19,385 --> 01:11:23,625 The Financial Times had launched an internal inquiry into Dan McCrum, 1124 01:11:23,705 --> 01:11:26,865 and Wirecard made the most of this time, 1125 01:11:26,945 --> 01:11:29,465 and its market price kept rising. 1126 01:11:29,545 --> 01:11:36,145 They even got the German Chancellor to promote the company in China. 1127 01:11:36,225 --> 01:11:39,625 All this happened in those months when the Financial Times 1128 01:11:39,705 --> 01:11:42,185 didn't write anything critical of Wirecard. 1129 01:11:43,865 --> 01:11:45,785 [Lionel in English] I went through a torrid time. 1130 01:11:45,865 --> 01:11:47,345 I wanted to get back at them. 1131 01:11:48,305 --> 01:11:49,465 I was livid. 1132 01:11:50,705 --> 01:11:54,345 Soon as the investigation was over, when we get a clean bill of health, 1133 01:11:54,425 --> 01:11:56,105 I called in Paul and Dan. 1134 01:11:56,625 --> 01:11:59,625 I said, "The next story, I want you to draw blood." 1135 01:11:59,705 --> 01:12:02,385 [tense music intensifies] 1136 01:12:05,945 --> 01:12:10,505 [Dan] We had to find a way to make it absolutely clear to everybody 1137 01:12:10,585 --> 01:12:12,225 that Wirecard was a fake. 1138 01:12:14,905 --> 01:12:17,505 We were angry, and there was no hanging back. 1139 01:12:17,585 --> 01:12:20,065 [paper printing] 1140 01:12:21,665 --> 01:12:23,105 It was the whole enchilada. 1141 01:12:23,985 --> 01:12:26,545 Wirecard is a fake, its business isn't real, 1142 01:12:26,625 --> 01:12:28,625 and Markus Braun is lying to you. 1143 01:12:29,145 --> 01:12:31,105 And here are the documents that prove it. 1144 01:12:31,185 --> 01:12:34,745 [uptempo suspenseful music plays] 1145 01:12:36,985 --> 01:12:40,025 This is how it is doing the fakery. 1146 01:12:40,545 --> 01:12:44,105 Here are the partners that don't exist. Here are the customers who don't exist. 1147 01:12:46,505 --> 01:12:50,345 Here is everything you need to switch on the blue lights, 1148 01:12:50,425 --> 01:12:53,185 go down to Wirecard HQ, and arrest everyone. 1149 01:12:55,145 --> 01:12:57,065 [reporter] The Financial Times suggest 1150 01:12:57,145 --> 01:12:59,625 that you've routed billions of euros in payments 1151 01:12:59,705 --> 01:13:01,425 -to 34 names… -Mm-hmm. 1152 01:13:01,505 --> 01:13:05,705 …through a partner company in Dubai at Al Alam Solutions. 1153 01:13:05,785 --> 01:13:07,505 According to the FT, 1154 01:13:07,585 --> 01:13:11,185 more than half of the clients have never heard of Al Alam. 1155 01:13:11,265 --> 01:13:13,225 [Markus] Let me give you a clear statement here. 1156 01:13:13,305 --> 01:13:15,905 This information is not authentic, 1157 01:13:15,985 --> 01:13:18,265 how it was presented by the FT. 1158 01:13:18,345 --> 01:13:21,225 We can completely reject these allegations. 1159 01:13:22,665 --> 01:13:24,825 [uptempo suspenseful music stops] 1160 01:13:24,905 --> 01:13:27,585 [Martin] Dan McCrum's reporting at the Financial Times, 1161 01:13:27,665 --> 01:13:29,945 of course, made us uneasy. 1162 01:13:30,025 --> 01:13:34,465 However, I just didn't have any visibility of any transactions 1163 01:13:34,545 --> 01:13:36,985 in the Middle East or the Philippines. 1164 01:13:37,065 --> 01:13:40,665 It didn't really make sense to me that they couldn't exist. 1165 01:13:42,065 --> 01:13:45,225 It was painful because this is something you believed in. 1166 01:13:49,865 --> 01:13:53,585 We believed that we had put a hole in Wirecard 1167 01:13:53,665 --> 01:13:55,425 that would bring the business down, 1168 01:13:55,505 --> 01:13:57,665 but it didn't come crashing down. 1169 01:13:58,425 --> 01:14:03,585 But this latest evidence from the FT was difficult to ignore. 1170 01:14:03,665 --> 01:14:08,545 Now Wirecard has categorically rejected the allegations of impropriety. 1171 01:14:08,625 --> 01:14:10,265 But on October 21st, 1172 01:14:10,345 --> 01:14:13,585 Wirecard appointed KPMG to conduct a special audit, 1173 01:14:13,665 --> 01:14:19,345 just to confirm that they have not engaged in any improper accounting practices. 1174 01:14:21,025 --> 01:14:24,305 [in German] Dr. Markus Braun, you've decided 1175 01:14:24,385 --> 01:14:27,105 to carry out an external audit 1176 01:14:27,185 --> 01:14:32,305 due to the allegations that the FT have made. 1177 01:14:32,385 --> 01:14:34,865 The question is, "Why only now?" 1178 01:14:35,745 --> 01:14:37,305 Well, we reacted very quickly. 1179 01:14:37,385 --> 01:14:41,225 The newspaper article was published only over a week ago. 1180 01:14:42,665 --> 01:14:46,505 At first, Braun didn't want this inquiry. 1181 01:14:46,585 --> 01:14:50,785 We reject these allegations 100%. 1182 01:14:51,385 --> 01:14:55,585 People at Wirecard must have known that this is going to be troublesome. 1183 01:14:55,665 --> 01:14:58,265 When will the auditors present their report? 1184 01:14:58,905 --> 01:15:03,425 I don't want to jump the gun, but we think within a few months. 1185 01:15:03,505 --> 01:15:07,785 We believe we will have results very quickly. 1186 01:15:09,745 --> 01:15:11,785 [Dan in English] Holy shit. The story's working. 1187 01:15:12,305 --> 01:15:15,825 Finally, you know, we had an impact. They haven't been able to brush it off. 1188 01:15:15,905 --> 01:15:18,145 There's been enough pressure from their investors 1189 01:15:18,225 --> 01:15:21,105 that they've had to appoint KPMG. [inhales] 1190 01:15:21,185 --> 01:15:23,585 It felt like the stakes were high at that point. 1191 01:15:23,665 --> 01:15:25,665 [tense music plays] 1192 01:15:32,745 --> 01:15:34,585 [in German] My name is Joachim Giehl. 1193 01:15:35,385 --> 01:15:37,865 I am Markus Braun's neighbor. 1194 01:15:40,465 --> 01:15:42,745 I always had the impression 1195 01:15:42,825 --> 01:15:45,425 that this man is under a massive amount of pressure. 1196 01:15:48,625 --> 01:15:51,665 He greeted nobody as his neighbor. 1197 01:15:51,745 --> 01:15:53,905 He always just got in his car. 1198 01:15:53,985 --> 01:15:55,945 No hello, no nothing. 1199 01:16:00,865 --> 01:16:06,065 There was one day, around 8:30 p.m., 1200 01:16:06,145 --> 01:16:09,105 I parked my car in the garage. 1201 01:16:09,705 --> 01:16:15,305 It was dark, and I saw Markus Braun at the entrance to our building. 1202 01:16:17,145 --> 01:16:22,025 I saw him in the lamplight, and he looked extremely tense. 1203 01:16:24,025 --> 01:16:29,065 He was surrounded by some men whom I didn't recognize. 1204 01:16:31,865 --> 01:16:33,345 They seemed out of place. 1205 01:16:35,305 --> 01:16:37,705 They didn't look like businesspeople. 1206 01:16:37,785 --> 01:16:43,105 They looked like people who work as security, bodyguards, 1207 01:16:43,185 --> 01:16:45,385 a group of thugs… [exhales] 1208 01:16:45,465 --> 01:16:47,225 …or people like that. 1209 01:16:48,785 --> 01:16:52,345 They didn't look like they were there to protect him. 1210 01:16:52,425 --> 01:16:56,665 Rather, I thought they were there… 1211 01:16:56,745 --> 01:16:58,225 [exhales] 1212 01:16:58,305 --> 01:16:59,465 …to do a job. 1213 01:16:59,545 --> 01:17:02,465 [dog barking] 1214 01:17:06,905 --> 01:17:10,025 [in English] Dr. Markus Braun and Jan Marsalek's relationship 1215 01:17:10,105 --> 01:17:11,905 definitely deteriorated. 1216 01:17:13,865 --> 01:17:16,225 In December 2019, 1217 01:17:16,305 --> 01:17:19,185 we had a Christmas party for our team, 1218 01:17:20,065 --> 01:17:23,305 and Jan Marsalek arrived somewhat unexpectedly. 1219 01:17:24,625 --> 01:17:27,505 And then he said… in a smiling fashion, 1220 01:17:27,585 --> 01:17:31,985 "Martin, if you stole 100,000 from the company, 1221 01:17:32,065 --> 01:17:34,225 I would not have respect for you." 1222 01:17:34,305 --> 01:17:36,345 "If you're gonna steal it from the company, 1223 01:17:36,425 --> 01:17:38,065 you have to steal millions, 1224 01:17:38,145 --> 01:17:39,705 hundreds of millions." 1225 01:17:40,585 --> 01:17:43,505 [suspenseful music plays] 1226 01:17:43,585 --> 01:17:45,665 [Paul] While this was happening, 1227 01:17:45,745 --> 01:17:48,665 Braun comes up with this fantastic idea. 1228 01:17:50,385 --> 01:17:51,745 His biggest yet. 1229 01:17:52,705 --> 01:17:55,745 The plan was to take over Deutsche Bank, 1230 01:17:55,825 --> 01:17:57,625 Germany's biggest bank. 1231 01:17:59,345 --> 01:18:01,745 [Felix in German] It was called "Project Panther," 1232 01:18:01,825 --> 01:18:04,465 a plan for a hostile takeover. 1233 01:18:05,065 --> 01:18:09,545 A large consulting company put a document together 1234 01:18:09,625 --> 01:18:13,025 which showed how it could make sense 1235 01:18:13,105 --> 01:18:15,585 to merge an old bank with a new tech company. 1236 01:18:17,185 --> 01:18:20,865 The "Wirebank," or whatever it would have been called. 1237 01:18:22,425 --> 01:18:24,865 The idea was 1238 01:18:24,945 --> 01:18:27,865 if you merged these two companies, 1239 01:18:27,945 --> 01:18:32,025 with the Deutsche Bank balance being so much bigger than Wirecard's, 1240 01:18:32,105 --> 01:18:36,545 that then maybe the fraud at Wirecard would somehow get swept under the rug. 1241 01:18:38,225 --> 01:18:40,705 [Paul in English] If you've got a bank like Deutsche Bank, 1242 01:18:40,785 --> 01:18:44,145 you can hide a lot of bad numbers inside a bank that big. 1243 01:18:45,505 --> 01:18:47,185 [Dan] It's sort of genius, really. 1244 01:18:47,865 --> 01:18:49,985 It's a bit like instead of having a getaway car, 1245 01:18:50,065 --> 01:18:52,105 it's just gone into the bank and taken over. 1246 01:18:53,985 --> 01:18:55,385 And if they'd done that, you know, 1247 01:18:55,465 --> 01:18:58,185 Markus Braun would have been the genius financier, 1248 01:18:58,265 --> 01:19:01,745 who was now running one of the world's largest financial institutions. 1249 01:19:04,185 --> 01:19:08,025 [Paul] It was essentially Braun's last roll of the dice. 1250 01:19:09,145 --> 01:19:11,265 [suspenseful music intensifies] 1251 01:19:11,345 --> 01:19:14,425 Wirecard's existing auditors, EY, 1252 01:19:14,505 --> 01:19:19,585 were taking extra steps to check that 1.9 billion of cash, 1253 01:19:19,665 --> 01:19:23,665 which Wirecard claimed, actually existed. 1254 01:19:24,385 --> 01:19:26,225 [Stefania] Wirecard essentially said 1255 01:19:26,305 --> 01:19:31,825 that 1.9 billion euros was sitting in two Philippine banks. 1256 01:19:32,425 --> 01:19:35,505 [Paul] On this occasion, the auditors wanted real proof 1257 01:19:35,585 --> 01:19:39,905 that Wirecard had access to the money it claimed, 1258 01:19:39,985 --> 01:19:43,905 which, of course, Wirecard couldn't do because the money didn't exist. 1259 01:19:44,505 --> 01:19:49,385 So everybody wanted to know, would EY find out the truth? 1260 01:19:55,505 --> 01:19:56,985 [sirens wailing] 1261 01:19:57,065 --> 01:19:59,465 -[tense music plays] -[cars honking] 1262 01:19:59,545 --> 01:20:01,385 -[tires squealing] -[sirens wailing] 1263 01:20:07,145 --> 01:20:09,665 [Fahmi] That night, I couldn't sleep… 1264 01:20:10,825 --> 01:20:12,745 because I wanted to be prepared. 1265 01:20:15,025 --> 01:20:18,465 Whatever I could get my hands on, as far as shares of Wirecard, 1266 01:20:18,545 --> 01:20:22,665 I got it because, you know, in my gut, I knew it was going to happen that day. 1267 01:20:24,625 --> 01:20:28,545 We got close to 100 million at the, you know, peak of Wirecard 1268 01:20:29,945 --> 01:20:31,625 until I ran out of shares to short. 1269 01:20:39,705 --> 01:20:40,865 [Dan] That morning, 1270 01:20:40,945 --> 01:20:44,425 I'm up at six o'clock waiting for something to happen. 1271 01:20:45,465 --> 01:20:47,385 Suddenly this announcement pops up. 1272 01:20:48,065 --> 01:20:53,065 [in German] Auditors can no longer locate €1.9 billion 1273 01:20:53,145 --> 01:20:55,785 that are said to be in escrow accounts in Asia. 1274 01:20:55,865 --> 01:20:58,025 [reporter] The two banks in the Philippines 1275 01:20:58,105 --> 01:21:00,545 where the €1.9 billion was supposed to be 1276 01:21:00,625 --> 01:21:03,025 said today that they had no business relations 1277 01:21:03,105 --> 01:21:04,785 with the payments processor. 1278 01:21:04,865 --> 01:21:06,345 The documents were faked. 1279 01:21:07,705 --> 01:21:12,505 [in English] As soon as I saw that, I just knew it's completely game over. 1280 01:21:12,585 --> 01:21:14,585 [tense music intensifies] 1281 01:21:16,665 --> 01:21:19,905 The share price crashes. The short sellers can all see it. 1282 01:21:19,985 --> 01:21:22,825 They start selling every single Wirecard share 1283 01:21:22,905 --> 01:21:25,625 they can get their hands on and finally make a fortune from it. 1284 01:21:25,705 --> 01:21:28,905 How do you simply miss a couple of billion dollars? 1285 01:21:29,505 --> 01:21:34,265 [in German] The share price plunged by 70%. 1286 01:21:34,345 --> 01:21:35,825 [in English] Fucking hell. We did it! 1287 01:21:35,905 --> 01:21:37,465 You know… [laughs] 1288 01:21:37,545 --> 01:21:38,705 …I mean, we did it. 1289 01:21:38,785 --> 01:21:40,785 We finally got those bastards. 1290 01:21:45,505 --> 01:21:47,545 [tense music ends] 1291 01:21:47,625 --> 01:21:49,665 [Fahmi] When you make money, obviously it's great. 1292 01:21:49,745 --> 01:21:52,665 You know, we're happy for our investors and it's a huge win. 1293 01:21:53,345 --> 01:21:56,265 Our satisfaction, the excitement is in the hunt, 1294 01:21:56,345 --> 01:21:58,505 but Wirecard was our biggest winner, 1295 01:21:58,585 --> 01:22:03,385 and I suspect it'll be our biggest winner, um, for a long while. 1296 01:22:05,465 --> 01:22:07,625 [Markus in German] Ladies and gentlemen, 1297 01:22:07,705 --> 01:22:10,825 on behalf of the management board of Wirecard, 1298 01:22:10,905 --> 01:22:13,025 I would like to give the following explanation. 1299 01:22:13,105 --> 01:22:16,065 [Jorg] The press conference that night was like The Muppet Show. 1300 01:22:17,505 --> 01:22:19,585 Braun reads from the teleprompter. 1301 01:22:21,025 --> 01:22:23,145 The death sentence has already been handed out, 1302 01:22:23,225 --> 01:22:27,785 and he's still making it seem as if he's going to announce 1303 01:22:27,865 --> 01:22:30,865 an amazing quarterly report next month. 1304 01:22:31,465 --> 01:22:36,225 Right now, it cannot be ruled out that Wirecard 1305 01:22:36,305 --> 01:22:39,625 has become the damaged party 1306 01:22:39,705 --> 01:22:43,145 in a fraud case of considerable proportions. 1307 01:22:44,745 --> 01:22:46,065 [Dan in English] Within a week, 1308 01:22:46,145 --> 01:22:49,225 Wirecard has been placed into administration. It's gone bust. 1309 01:22:49,305 --> 01:22:51,505 [reporter 1] Former CEO of Wirecard has been arrested 1310 01:22:51,585 --> 01:22:53,865 on suspicion of falsifying accounts. 1311 01:22:53,945 --> 01:22:56,105 And Markus Braun has been arrested. 1312 01:22:57,105 --> 01:22:59,865 But Jan Marsalek just disappears. 1313 01:23:01,785 --> 01:23:05,905 [in German] Where is the COO of the insolvent payment processor, 1314 01:23:05,985 --> 01:23:08,865 Wirecard, the Austrian, Jan Marsalek? 1315 01:23:10,945 --> 01:23:14,185 [reporter 2 in English] Wirecard's former Chief Operating Officer, Jan Marsalek 1316 01:23:14,265 --> 01:23:16,465 may have returned to the Philippines. 1317 01:23:17,145 --> 01:23:19,585 [reporter 3] He arrived on June 23. 1318 01:23:19,665 --> 01:23:21,065 That was two days ago 1319 01:23:21,145 --> 01:23:24,185 and left yesterday morning bound for China. 1320 01:23:26,305 --> 01:23:28,865 [Jorg in German] An agent always has an escape route. 1321 01:23:30,945 --> 01:23:36,065 We knew that Marsalek was in the office until that Friday afternoon. 1322 01:23:36,705 --> 01:23:39,025 He supposedly said 1323 01:23:39,105 --> 01:23:42,065 he had to go to the Philippines to clear the whole thing up. 1324 01:23:44,505 --> 01:23:48,465 He went for dinner with Martin W. that evening. 1325 01:23:50,465 --> 01:23:53,105 Martin W., who he knew from the Prinzregentenstrasse 1326 01:23:53,185 --> 01:23:56,225 and who used to be in the Austrian secret service 1327 01:23:56,305 --> 01:24:00,425 together with an Austrian, right-wing politician 1328 01:24:00,505 --> 01:24:02,345 booked Marsalek a flight. 1329 01:24:03,825 --> 01:24:07,465 Marsalek paid close to €8,000 in cash… 1330 01:24:09,025 --> 01:24:10,865 and then his trail disappeared. 1331 01:24:13,945 --> 01:24:15,505 He didn't go to the Philippines. 1332 01:24:15,585 --> 01:24:16,585 It doesn't make sense. 1333 01:24:16,665 --> 01:24:21,385 He couldn't have entered the country because of quarantine regulations. 1334 01:24:22,585 --> 01:24:25,265 There are databases where you can check flight data. 1335 01:24:25,945 --> 01:24:31,105 Since 2015, he flew at least 60 times to Russia. 1336 01:24:31,625 --> 01:24:34,025 And there was one flight 1337 01:24:34,105 --> 01:24:38,905 from a small airport near Vienna to Minsk. 1338 01:24:41,145 --> 01:24:42,585 It's not far from Moscow. 1339 01:24:43,145 --> 01:24:48,425 The border to Russia is not controlled, and that's where the trail is lost. 1340 01:24:49,625 --> 01:24:52,225 After that, it's just rumors. 1341 01:24:53,905 --> 01:24:56,065 [somber music plays] 1342 01:24:56,145 --> 01:24:58,065 We don't know for certain if Marsalek 1343 01:24:58,145 --> 01:25:01,505 was actually a secret-service informant or not. 1344 01:25:03,585 --> 01:25:06,065 [Stephanie] Jan Marsalek was very well-connected 1345 01:25:06,145 --> 01:25:08,785 in the secret service parallel world, 1346 01:25:08,865 --> 01:25:12,225 and that's why I think he won't be that easy to find. 1347 01:25:15,865 --> 01:25:18,465 [Jorg] We know that he's online occasionally 1348 01:25:18,545 --> 01:25:22,185 via an old Telegram account. 1349 01:25:22,705 --> 01:25:24,385 [interviewer talks indistinctly] 1350 01:25:24,905 --> 01:25:26,385 I can check again. 1351 01:25:29,185 --> 01:25:33,985 He's been online every few months. 1352 01:25:35,585 --> 01:25:40,985 The last time was on May 27, 2021. 1353 01:25:41,065 --> 01:25:45,305 [mischievous music plays] 1354 01:25:48,625 --> 01:25:50,865 [reporter 1] The German parliament has started 1355 01:25:50,945 --> 01:25:53,065 a political inquiry into Wirecard, 1356 01:25:53,145 --> 01:25:56,065 one of the biggest scandals of the German republic. 1357 01:25:56,145 --> 01:26:00,865 A financial disaster for those who invested their money in Wirecard. 1358 01:26:02,465 --> 01:26:07,545 [reporter 2] It was the first DAX-listed company to go bust. 1359 01:26:09,305 --> 01:26:11,905 [tense music plays] 1360 01:26:20,385 --> 01:26:23,625 [Jorg] I think that Wirecard's inner circle 1361 01:26:23,705 --> 01:26:27,545 who knew what was really going on was very small. 1362 01:26:28,705 --> 01:26:29,825 Certainly Marsalek. 1363 01:26:30,705 --> 01:26:34,825 The fascinating question is, "What did Braun know about all this?" 1364 01:26:34,905 --> 01:26:38,105 [tense music intensifies] 1365 01:26:43,505 --> 01:26:46,145 [Lena] He wasn't emotional. He was very tense. 1366 01:26:47,425 --> 01:26:50,225 And then he gave a short opening statement. 1367 01:26:51,105 --> 01:26:55,225 "All I can say… is we were all deceived." 1368 01:26:56,265 --> 01:26:57,465 "I'm a victim." 1369 01:26:58,825 --> 01:27:02,105 And then his lawyer said he won't answer any further questions. 1370 01:27:02,785 --> 01:27:07,185 He really sat there for three hours and didn't answer. 1371 01:27:09,025 --> 01:27:10,105 [camera shutter clicks] 1372 01:27:10,185 --> 01:27:12,905 [Martin in English] Reliving the whole experience now, 1373 01:27:12,985 --> 01:27:15,945 I feel naive in not having seen certain things. 1374 01:27:16,985 --> 01:27:18,665 I do believe, personally, 1375 01:27:18,745 --> 01:27:23,465 that there's a possibility he did not know what Jan Marsalek was doing, 1376 01:27:24,585 --> 01:27:27,505 but I think it was his responsibility to know. 1377 01:27:30,025 --> 01:27:34,265 [Jorg in German] I think so far, we only know the tip of the iceberg. 1378 01:27:34,345 --> 01:27:39,505 Unless Jan Marsalek turns up somewhere and breaks his silence, 1379 01:27:39,585 --> 01:27:41,985 only then will we get the full story. 1380 01:27:44,825 --> 01:27:47,345 [Dan in English] If Jan's out there, I'd love to talk to him. 1381 01:27:47,425 --> 01:27:50,145 I mean, I've spent years trying to get inside his head. 1382 01:27:52,265 --> 01:27:55,145 Who was it who was committing the fraud within? 1383 01:27:55,225 --> 01:27:58,305 You know, what did he and Markus Braun talk about? 1384 01:27:58,825 --> 01:28:01,625 Was it a relief when it came crashing down? 1385 01:28:04,265 --> 01:28:05,945 That's kind of interesting, right? 1386 01:28:06,025 --> 01:28:08,025 [dramatic music plays] 1387 01:28:27,585 --> 01:28:28,825 [dramatic music ends] 1388 01:28:37,585 --> 01:28:39,585 [somber music plays] 1389 01:31:38,745 --> 01:31:41,145 [somber music ends]