How do you make $2 Billion disappear?
Perhaps by the money never being there in the first place?
That’s the mystery of Wirecard, a German payment processor, that in mid-June was valued at $14 Billion and on June 25th filed for the German equivalent of bankruptcy.
The company claimed that the money, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, represented virtually all of its historical profits, was in two Phillipino banks, but a special audit could not confirm that.
Thereafter, the company stated that the money probably never existed at all.
The theory being probed by investigators is that Wirecard used unlicensed, independent third party payment processors in Asia that created fictional revenue that was “deposited” into fictional bank accounts and reported back to Wirecard which put it on their financial statements.
Needless to say both the CEO and his deputy have been arrested.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wirecard-bankruptcy-scandal-missing-$2billion-11593703379
Source: https://jeffkoeppel.wordpress.com/2020/07/03/financial-sleight-of-hand/
