"For ten years, Jan Marsalek was very useful to Russia. But the time will come when he will know too much and will no longer be so useful. That is why I think his days are numbered", says Bulgarian investigative journalist Hristo Grozev in an interview with ARD.
A team of investigative journalists finds him in Moscow
The interview was given on the occasion of the fact that journalists from several countries managed to find Jan Marsalek in Moscow, who has been hiding from German justice for years. The journalists also reveal that Marsalek, who fled to Russia, is now clearly working for the Russian secret services. He has been followed for more than a year by a team of investigative journalists from “Spiegel“, the German public broadcaster ZDF, the American PBS, the Austrian “Standart“ and the Russian investigative platform “Insider“.
The former manager of Wirecard is wanted on charges of commercial fraud, breach of trust and a number of other property and economic crimes. The bankruptcy of the former DAX group is considered one of the largest economic scandals in Germany. As a member of the company's Management Board, Marsalek was primarily responsible for Wirecard's activities in Asia.
In an interview with ARD, Hristo Grozev, who is part of the team, revealed details of the investigation. In the summer of 2020, a fellow journalist from “Spiegel“ called him with the offer to find out where Marsalek was. “At that time there were suspicions that he might be hiding in Africa, the Philippines or Malaysia. Until then, I had never heard the name Marsalek, nor that of the company Wirecard. It took me about two weeks to find out that he was in Russia“, says Grozev.
“The key was always the women around him”
The key to access Marsalek was the women around him. “A woman always took us to him, for example, his first Russian girlfriend Natalia Zlobina in 2024. Now another woman, his new girlfriend, has directed us to him again“, reveals Grozev.
The team has started following her and it quickly becomes clear that she is dating a man named Alexander Nelidov - a name that does not actually exist, but from photos of the man, investigative journalists establish that this is Jan Marsalek - not only with a fake name, but also with a changed appearance - transplanted hair and cosmetic changes to the face.
Artificial intelligence has also played a role in the investigation. “You will be surprised how many fragments of data can be found on social networks“, says Hristo Grozev in the interview with ARD. Members of his family also leave traces there, apart from that, there are data traders in Russia who work with corrupt secret service employees, corrupt police officers or employees of telecommunications companies. They can provide, for example, information about mobile phones.
"Germany could have been much more active"
„In this case, we had the phone number of Jan Marsalek, who lives in Russia under a false identity. We asked for the metadata of this phone number to be traced back a year and a half. After three days, we already had the information. This is not unethical when it comes to a perpetrator of a crime and when it is clear that the state is not taking any action to uncover him. Someone has to make the state move“, says Hristo Grozev.
Later in his interview with ARD, he accuses the German authorities of serious shortcomings. „I think Germany could have been much more active. You can't wait for someone to surrender themselves. "If I can do it (find Marsalek, editor's note) with my limited resources, with a team of four people and a little money, then governments and investigative agencies, which have much more data and capabilities, should be able to do it legally, without having to resort to the black market," Grozev says. He also says: "We have seen that in the last two years no government has shown any serious interest in arresting Marsalek. I hope that my research will change this, because people will ask why governments are not doing anything."
"From a journalist-persecuter, I had become a persecuted one"
Finally, Hristo Grozev also tells how this investigation put him in danger, which is why he had to leave his new homeland Austria: “At the beginning of 2023, I was in New York and one day I was told that I could not return to Austria, where I lived with my family, because a team was waiting for me there, ready to kidnap me. From the information, it became clear that Russia was behind this and that they were looking for me. A few weeks later, it became clear who they had assigned this task to – to six Bulgarian citizens, led by Jan Marsalek, who had in the meantime been detained (and convicted of espionage in favor of Russia - ed.). So from a journalist-persecuter, I had turned into a person persecuted by a group of spies. This was shocking to me“, Hristo Grozev tells ARD.
Emiliyan Lilov editor