Wirecard and the missing €1.9bn: my story | FT 

This is journalism, investigative journalism of the highest quality. Good work FT!

The free press is the golden thread in our history, and hopefully our future, good work guys

Well in a way Wirecard was taking this whole "cashless society" think waaay to serious ^^

Bafin and Ernst &Young should be held responsible.. both were sleeping, EY on wirecard's money and Bafin on tax payers money..

I am a fellow German and I congratulate you for your great work. This is how journalism should be. Job well done mate

What is truly damaging is that you can't rely on some auditors to have done the most basic check of verifying cash balances in accounts they are signing off for even massive listed companies. The auditing profession is clearly failing and needs the kind of reforms that it is incapable of providing itself. Thank goodness we have a free press and the internet to hold people to account.

Great Video! As a 22 year old german dude, I was so dumb to Listen to the BaFin and was owner of Some Wirecard stocks, that I bought three year ago. In my opinion itis absolutely amazing That the FT didn‘t stop its critical journalism! Next Time I Listen to your words. Love from Germany

Good journalism requires courage and perseverance. You showed it both, Dan. Thank you and keep on the work!

I wish I had listened to him, then I would not have lost thousands of Euros with Wirecard.

The FT is a damn fine newspaper and McCrum is one of its assets.

I must say that I didn't believed it on myself... costly. But it was so out of thinkable for me that something to this scale could happen .... Thumbs up FT

I wonder who will play Dan in the Netflix movie

Daniel, whatever FT is paying you, it’s not enough. You’ve done incredible work

Some heads should roll in the German administration, that thought investigating FT but not Wirecard was the way to go !

Why don't we talk about the CFO at all?

Great Work! And a good recap video. As a German I have to admit, that I thought and hoped you were wrong back then.

I was invested in Wirecard until 18th June 9 am. After the opening of the stock exchange, I sold all shares because no figures were published. Up until the previous day of 18th of June, I assumed that there was hardly anything wrong with the allegations. This was mainly since there have already been numerous investigations, which, however, have never led to really stressful results. Likewise, I could hardly imagine that EY has made negligent test mistakes over the years. Just as an example: With such constellations (TPA = customer & supplier at the same time), a closer examination is usually normal. Likewise, the bank confirmations of the trust accounts should have been obtained every year. However, this has not been done and relied on fake balance confirmations. After the opening of the stock exchange, I expected bad news because there was something wrong with the certificate, but I would not have expected that 1.9 billion would be reported as "missing". In retrospect, I am primarily amazed by EY and BaFin. These should have looked much more critically into Wirecrds' books since the allegations were justified. Anyway, I have to say that the work of the FT (especially you) was extremely good.

wirecard : wolf of Wall Street, German style

Thanks to your work I saved my savings while the entire country here was again fooled by an Austrian. Thanks from Frankfurt 🙂

Great work guys. Hope to see some more investigative journalism

Dan, I owe you an apology too. I was so convinced by Wirecard, I never thought we'd be so scammed. You did your job well. Not only did you show that Wirecard scammed, you also showed how bad Germany is as a financial centre. A shame for BaFin and all the auditors and accountants who were involved!

My money is stuck in one of these fintech "banks" , this is a nightmare

Thx for your investigation, i remember the first articles and consequently never added wirecard to my portfolio because I could not estimate the growth potential of its business model

So it was a house of cards

This kind of journalist and journalism should not only lauded but also handsomly compensated. At the end of the day money matters..you can't eat ethics and principles.

Thank you, Dan McCrum for your job and for your stamina standing behind your story although everyone said you were wrong (including me)! You and your team were the only ones who have done their jobs to find and tell the truth! Thank you! Journalism is one of the most important things in a democracy and in a better world! Wish you all the best for your future! Greetings from Germany

If you have enough money you can buy the people who are supposed to be regulating you.

Keep up the good work. You exposed those frauds while the officials responsible to prevent fraud were investigating YOU because you did your job.

WOW. Thank you for this. Today my internet bank called U bank stop access to my funds. They said that the F C A has stop business pending inquiry. U bank partner is wirecard solutions. I am stroke survivor and must isolate. I cannot buy my food for my family and myself, I cannot top up my electricity, I cannot pay my internet and phone bill, i cannot buy necessary items for hygiene, I have no clue about my money. I have reported fraud on my account to be told I was one day late in reporting it as per wirecard policy. I pay my banking fee every month and for what? Someone is being greedy. I am ex ambulance medic. I work hard for my money. Give it back to me now pls

We need to support more to this type of media content. They in risk but still work for their principle to bring out the truth for society! Good job FT and the journalist’s team!! Thank you!

This is a shame for Germany and it's authorities. And I do say that being a German national.

I will read FT more often know. Thank you for a good job!

Great financial detective work, quite spectacular downfall of wirecard. Haha :D

Great work! Glad you pulled through these difficult times

Great report thank you:)

I can't get enough of this story

The Netflix documentary on this fraud is as good as any thriller. Dan , Stephanie and all those at FT are real superheroes.

Everybody is praising the journalist. I just also want to praise the editors for the excellent color grading.

I bank with a pockit card account now my account is frozen but I'm one of the lucky ones I got up early Friday and withdraw my money went shopping wasn't till latter on in the day I found out my account got froze lucky I only left £7.00 in the account I feel bad for all the people who can't pay bills buy food pay their rent

Thanks for your clear explanation. Unbelievable that it can be that simple to explain this corruptible system

Fantastic journalism, good work everyone!

Again: you are a true hero! Thank you!

Wirecard somehow reminds me to Theranos/ Elizabeth Holmes, if you see a phony CEO wearing a turtleneck to make people beliefe he/she is as brilliant as Steve Jobs, run ! . Because all they have to offer is a turtleneck.

Big thanks to Dan McCrum and the whole team!

The Peep Show-ish soundtrack a the beginning was a nice touch.

Fantastic work! Well done 👍

Thank you for this video and of course your whole investigation. You did a great job! Best regards from germany

Good journalism, well done to uncover this fraud. we live in Africa and here everything goes, the governments mostly are unaccountable and oppress anyone who dares to tell the wrongs they are doing.. we need help from people like you..

On the day they planned to release their yearly finance statements, I was short-selling the stock as I was expecting it to drop by a few percentage points (maybe by 5..10%). I checked back into my broker terminal at 11am (German time), only to see that the stock price was falling from ~100€ down to ~30€. I was very glad to have made a bit of a profit on that drop, however, I was also thinking about the share holders which have lost everything by investing into this company for a couple of years ....... Moral of the story: Always remember to diversify your portfolio guys!

Well done FT

Well done for investigation discovery and reporting 👍

Cool, man! Ranked up the image of FT! Thanks for investigations and contribution to stop this messy game. I should listened to you instead of MB :)

You Sir and Ms. Fahmi Quadir saved me some money. Thank you! Keep on the good work!

As I had a few shares in the company I lost a fair bit of money last week (luckily 'only' a third due to a stop-loss order)... Still, good job holding fraudsters accountable!

Well done guys for exposing this scam! Luckily I only had a balance of $18.65 in my wirecard issued card

Thanks Dan and FT. Good journalism in the face of seemingly corrupt people and organisations.

Thanks for the good work Dan!

really great journalism! Investigative! such a relief to this kind of depth and amount of investment in journalism from the FT to pull this off (and all the other scoops!). Thank you!

Why would you even want a man in the middle for those financial transactions? Retailers and Banks have working systems in place since decades.

Great report, great work! Thanks a lot

Well done sir. When something looks too good to be true...

Superb journalism

Excellent analysis

No more credit Card - ever. Cash rules. I hope these Wirecard guys get locked up for ever.

Facts still matter. Thanks from Germany. You did a great job

This report and the work done by FT proves that they are the only financial journal that really earns its subscription money. Amazing job keep up with the good work fellas!

Great job. Kudos to you guys. I think you guys should investigate on WIrecard backer SOFTBANK. I am surprised that no one questions what is SOFTBANK is doing.

Love FT. Trustworthy and rock solid journalism. Sadly I can't afford them LOL.

Thank you for the excellent journalism.

I bought a VW diesel automobile with wiredcard because they were both german precision products

Great work!

Great journalism!!

sehr gute Arbeit, wahrscheinlich wäre es ohne seine Berichte gar nicht aufgedeckt worden.

I remember the day before the collapse, wirecard stock increased massively. How sad for those who speculated on the hope of the publishing its late year end. And again, well done Dan! For not giving up.

This may be the BEST Wirecard video out there

Great video!

The cashless society model is incredibly susceptible to these types of fraudulent acts.

Chapeau for this accurate and precise research, thanks for pushing the boundaries and keep workin on it despite all the struggles. As a German I feel a bit embarrassed for our investigators. Luckily I never mistrusted the allegations and kept a view from the sideline.

As soon as I read your story, I knew I wouldn't invest in Wirecard. Thank you for that, you propably saved me an awful lot of money!

Thank you for your work! Excellent job

Great work. Keeping those greedy finance folk honest ft!

When’s the screenplay to be released? It must’ve been a very exciting story especially from your POV (awful for shareholders!)

Congratulations on finding this out

¡Felicitaciones a todo el equipo del FT! Son en estos casos donde vemos que la libertad de prensa es un pilar fundamental en la sociedad actual.

Thanks for your work! Gruß aus Deutschland!

Thank you from Germany ! Keep on the good work

Top job!

Thank you Financial Times. Respect 🙌

Great Job! Greetings from Germany! :)

It was unneccesary to be afraid of the german government. I am a citizen of this country and i feel deeply ashamed.

Great reporting and insight 👍🏿

Looking forward to the book👍

Well done! Greetings from Germany

I remember when I lost 2 bln dollars. That did hurt.

What amazes me about these frauds is the incompetence of those carrying them out and those who are supposed to stop it. With no accounting skills whatsoever, I managed to find, for a friend, exactly who was stealing what even without a decent paper trail. At that point, of course, I got fired(?), he got his kickback and the company collapsed. What else do you expect from these companies? Oh, and regarding the paranoia. I've talked a few friends down by pointing out that they're just not important enough to warrant surveillance. In your case, no, it's probably justified.

I just watched the Netflix documentary skandal on the same topic and I wish this explanation was put in the documentary as well 😊

Actual journalism? We don't see much of that today in this cynical world. Good on you.

Brilliant job well done.

I landed a job at wirecard in June 2020. The day before I was supposed to hand over my resignation, they filed for insolvency. Thank God that was a near miss

Grazie 💚