The former chief operating officer of fintech company Wirecard, Jan Marsalek, continues to hide in Russia using three passports in other people's names, an investigation by The Insider and Der Spiegel has found.
In addition, the investigators, who studied Marsalek's correspondence, published previously unknown details and personalities of his extremely close relations with the Russian special services.
The fact that Marsalek was linked to Russian special services became known during the collapse of Wirecard in 2020. It was the first ever case of bankruptcy of a blue-chip company in the DAX index.
Before the collapse, Wirecard was "the most expensive fintech in Europe", was thinking about being taken over by Deutsche Bank and wanted to become a Telegram cryptocurrency platform, but it turned out that it was based on falsified reports and imitation of rapid growth.
Marsalek frequently travelled to Russia, selecting payment services and banks for acquisition.
In the summer of 2020, Spiegel confirmed that Marsalek had disappeared in Russia, and in late 2023, a major WSJ article came out, explicitly calling him a Russian agent who had been working for Russian intelligence services for at least 10 years and was directly involved in money laundering for the SVR and GRU.
The Insider's investigation has received new information.
Marsalek, an adventurer by nature, was tracked down by the Russian special services in 2014 through Russian model Natalia Zlobina. The latter put him in touch with Stanislav Petlinsky, the commander of a GRU special forces unit. This was the beginning of Marsalek's close work with the Russian special services.
Marsalek's early "services" included laundering $400 million from the Hong Kong accounts of Ramzan Kadyrov's friends, according to The Insider.
In 2017, he bought the Russian PMC RSB-Group, which operated in Libya. With its help, Marsalek intended to control the "southern" flow of refugees to Europe. The flow of funds scheme worked out in this agreement could be used for "grey" financing of GRU projects.
At the same time, he had ties with former employees of the Austrian Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counter-Terrorism (BVT).
In particular, after the 2020 investigation into the involvement of Russian special services in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny was released, Marsalek "pierced" the address of Christ Grozev, a co-author of the investigation, through the BVT.
In Russia, Marsalek lives on three passports, two of which bear the names of real people: priests Konstantin Bayazov from the Lipetsk region and Vitaly Malkin from Vladimir. The third was issued in the name of Alexander Schmidt.
Marsalek has retained access to some of his funds and continues to work for intelligence in Russia, but it seems that Western intelligence services are able to track and stop his activities.
Background. Earlier it was reported that the former director of Wirecard, Jan Marsalek, is suspected of spying for Russia.