{"id":173922,"date":"2021-05-18T03:29:31","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T10:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gaming-industry-linked-fintech-company-handled-e100-million-for-wirecard-fugitive-jan-marsalek\/"},"modified":"2021-05-18T10:52:26","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T17:52:26","slug":"gaming-industry-linked-fintech-company-handled-e100-million-for-wirecard-fugitive-jan-marsalek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gaming-industry-linked-fintech-company-handled-e100-million-for-wirecard-fugitive-jan-marsalek\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaming Industry Fintech Firm Handled \u20ac100M for Wirecard Fugitive Jan Marsalek"},"content":{"rendered":"

German prosecutors believe Finolita, a Lithuanian payments processor with links to the online gaming space, helped siphon $100 million out of fallen fintech giant Wirecard<\/a> prior to its dramatic collapse last year.<\/p>\n

\"Jan
COO Jan Marsalek of Wirecard. A payments processor is suspected of wiring the fugitive millions. (Image: Bloomberg<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to The Financial Times<\/em>, authorities suspect that a portion of a \u20ac100 million ($122 million) loan sent by Wirecard in March 2020 to a subsidiary of Finolita\u2019s parent company, Singapore-based payments group Senjo, was transferred to Wirecard\u2019s fugitive former COO, Jan Marsalek.<\/p>\n

Marsalek disappeared in June 2020 as the false accounting scandal that brought down Wirecard began to unfold. The Austrian-born former executive, believed to have links to Russian intelligence, is now one of the world\u2019s most wanted men.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Investigative journalism site\u00a0Bellingcat<\/em> has found evidence that flight information and immigration records that indicated Marsalek flew to China via the Philippines after fleeing were forged and that he is actually hiding out in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.<\/p>\n

\u20ac1.9 Billion ‘Never Existed’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Until recently, Wirecard was the leading fintech company in Germany, with a market cap of more than \u20ac22 billion ($25 billion). It was also a major player in the online gambling payments<\/a> space.<\/p>\n

\n

But an Ernst and Young audit last June found \u20ac1.9 billion ($2.2 billion) was \u201cmissing\u201d from the company accounts. Wirecard execs ultimately admitted that the \u20ac1.9 billion never existed and that accounts had been faked to artificially balloon the company\u2019s assets and sales.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Three board members were arrested for defrauding investors on a massive scale, including CEO Markus Braun.<\/p>\n

Within days, Wirecard declared insolvency. But prosecutors suspect hundreds of millions of euros were spirited away prior to insolvency proceedings. Now they believe at least some of that was handled by Finolita and its parent, Senjo, which was one of Wirecard\u2019s outsourcing partners in Asia.<\/p>\n

\u20ac65 Million Missing <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Investigators following the money trail believe that of the \u20ac100 million processed by Finolita, Marsalek forwarded \u20ac35 million ($43 million) to Braun as loan repayment. Braun used the money to repay a loan he himself had borrowed in early 2020 from Wirecard Bank. The remaining \u20ac65 million ($79 million) is unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

Finolita was founded in 2013 and acquired by the Senjo Group in 2017, according to documents seen by the FT<\/em>.\u00a0 On its LinkedIn page, it describes itself as a \u201cone-stop solution for merchants to receive banking services\u201d and that \u201chigh-risk (of fraud) clients,\u201d such as gambling companies, can \u201cjoin us anytime, anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bank of Lithuania, which licenses Finolita to provide banking services, told the FT<\/em> it was closely monitoring the situation. Authorities in Singapore confirmed they had launched an investigation into the Senjo Group, but declined to comment further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

German prosecutors believe Finolita, a Lithuanian payments processor with links to the online gaming space, helped siphon $100 million out of fallen fintech giant Wirecard prior to its dramatic collapse last year. According to The Financial Times, authorities suspect that a portion of a \u20ac100 million ($122 million) loan sent by Wirecard in March 2020 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":173923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFintech Company Handled \u20ac100 Million for Wirecard Fugitive Jan Marsalek<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lithuanian fintech company Finolita processed $100 million for Wirecard\u2019s missing COO Jan Marsalek, according to German prosecutors.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fintech Company Handled \u20ac100 Million for Wirecard Fugitive Jan Marsalek\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lithuanian fintech company Finolita processed $100 million for Wirecard\u2019s missing COO Jan Marsalek, according to German prosecutors.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/gaming-industry-linked-fintech-company-handled-e100-million-for-wirecard-fugitive-jan-marsalek\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-18T10:29:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-18T17:52:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/JAN.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1240\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"697\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" 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