
A Financial Times journalist's explosive expose of Wirecard - the $30 billion tech darling that perpetrated history's most audacious corporate fraud. Bradley Hope called it "the financial investigation of the decade," revealing how fake billions, intimidation tactics, and regulatory failures enabled a criminal empire's stunning collapse.
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Picture a CEO in a black turtleneck, compared to Steve Jobs, leading Germany's most celebrated tech success story. Now imagine discovering that nearly two billion euros-roughly the GDP of a small nation-never existed. Wirecard wasn't just another corporate scandal; it was a masterclass in deception that fooled some of the world's most sophisticated investors and auditors. What began as a scrappy payment processor for pornography websites somehow transformed into a 24-billion-euro giant on Germany's prestigious DAX 30 index. The story of its unraveling reveals something unsettling: we're often so desperate for success stories that we ignore the warning signs screaming right in front of us. When Denis Wagner walked into his job interview at Wirecard in 2003, he encountered a workplace that felt more like a surreal fever dream than a financial services company. Women dressed for stage performances wandered the halls. Colleagues casually discussed hardcore pornography during business calls. The founder, Paul Bauer, hired Wagner without discussing qualifications, offering generous pay for a job Wagner openly admitted he knew nothing about. This wasn't your typical corporate environment-it was a glimpse into the bizarre foundations upon which a European financial empire would be built.