About This Episode
This episode of Mørkeland examines one of Europe's biggest financial scandals ever: the collapse of the German payments company Wirecard. It tells the story of how the Wirecard scandal rocked the financial world when it emerged in 2020 that the company had falsified its accounts and made 1.9 billion euros — roughly 14 billion Danish kroner — vanish into thin air.
Wirecard was once a proud member of Germany's DAX index and was hailed as a European tech success story. But behind its polished facade lay a sprawling fraud, in which the company's management fabricated transactions and invented business activities to deceive investors and auditors alike.
The podcast traces how journalists uncovered the fraud, how German authorities long ignored the warning signs, and how former CEO Markus Braun ultimately ended up under arrest. The episode also sheds light on how some of the missing billions may have ended up in Asia through a network of shell companies.
Mørkeland delivers a thorough breakdown of the scandal's anatomy and raises important questions about financial regulation and corporate governance in modern Europe.
