Marsal’s assistant was manipulating a six-figure sum of money in plastic bags

Former personal assistant to Jan Marsal has revealed that he has helped make large withdrawals from plastic bags for Wirecard Bank customers, including a businessman who threatens US prison.

Sabine Heinzinger told German lawmakers in a bid to raise more than € 200,000 and € 300,000 organized by senior Wirecard executives, including Marsal, a former chief executive of the group and now a fugitive.

The former aide said he did not consider the withdrawals suspicious as they had undergone a number of internal formalities, adding that they had signed “several key employees”.

However, Heinzinger was surprised to find the banknotes in plastic bags. “I expected a more professional transport container, but that’s how I was given the money,” he told lawmakers in a recent hearing by a parliamentary committee investigating the collapse of the payment group late Thursday.

Heinzinger’s testimony, which worked for Marsal for seven years until the Wirecard implosion, is the first public reference to retirements. The Financial Times reported last month the former workers told Munich police that the workers repeatedly withdrew large sums of money from the group’s Munich headquarters.

The practice began in 2012 and the number of six-figure banknotes was usually carried in Aldi and Lidl plastic bags, former employees told police. It is not clear the full amount, where the current money is and the purpose of getting out of the building.

Heinzinger told the audience that once Marsal had received the money and handed it over to the customer, Matthias Hauer, Angela Merkel’s CDU / CSU Conservative bloc deputy, asked, “I call that decent customer service: a Dax board member personally gives money to a customer!”

During a 15-hour session on Friday morning, Marsalek’s former assistant was witnessed by several witnesses. The commission has been examining for months the fall of Wirecard, which fell in June 2020 in one of the biggest corporate scams committed in Germany in decades.

In his testimony, Heinzinger named Ray Akhavan, a 43-year-old U.S. citizen, as one of the accounts for which the money was withdrawn. He was in Akhavan recently condemned For fraudulent payment of more than $ 150 million in the US. According to people who knew the subject, he had long trusted Marsal.

In March, a New York court found Akhavan and his German business partner Ruben Weigand guilty of credit card payments for marijuana for purchases of other products, including face creams and dog products. They are due to be sentenced on June 25 and face up to 30 years in prison.

Akhavan was the main client of Wirecard and was personally cared for by senior executives, Heinzinger told lawmakers.

Marsal said he is a “nice boss” and added that he is “always fair, loyal and polite.” However, he stated that he traveled frequently and did not share details about the work with him.

Heinzinger stressed that he only learned of the fraud in June last year, before Wirecard reported that the corporation was missing 1.9 billion euros in the Philippines, adding that it could be “misunderstood” at first.