[HN Gopher] Fugitive Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek exposed as decade...
___________________________________________________________________
Fugitive Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek exposed as decade-long GRU spy
Author : jcmp
Score : 434 points
Date : 2024-03-01 12:13 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theins.ru)
(TXT) w3m dump (theins.ru)
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Hidden as a orthodox priest!
|
| _" Then came June 2020, when, in the midst of an audit, Wirecard
| could not locate EUR1.9 billion in assets it claimed were being
| held somewhere in the world"_
|
| EY audited them for years without asking about the missing
| billions.
| piva00 wrote:
| > Hidden as a orthodox priest!
|
| A throwback to the ancient world to the Middle Ages, hiding
| spies among the clergy!
| dralley wrote:
| Don't have to go back that far - the current Patriarch of the
| Russian Orthodox Church is "ex-"KGB
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > the current Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is
| "ex-"KGB
|
| Seems related: Russia is more frequently arresting
| religious leaders (all sorts), typically on terrorism
| charges
|
| ref: https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-
| conscience/forb-v...
|
| ref: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/2/ukraine-court-
| puts-m...
|
| ref: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/02/03/russia-
| jails-islam...
|
| ref:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/world/europe/russia-
| churc...
|
| ref: https://www.uscirf.gov/religious-prisoners-
| conscience/forb-v...
|
| 2000's sidebar: It killed me watching Russia overtly copy
| the US model of boogey-manning terrorism into an flexible
| excuse to expand State reach and power
| dralley wrote:
| er, copy? The first and second Chechen wars happened in
| the 1990s.
| mandevil wrote:
| In September 1999 a series of bombs tore apart four
| apartment buildings in three Russian cities, and the
| recently appointed (a month earlier) Prime Minister, a
| bright young former deputy mayor of St Petersburg named
| Vladimir Putin, whom no one had ever heard of and had
| many similarly positioned rivals, won a great deal of
| popularity for his handling of these "terrorist attacks"
| that killed 307 people, including re-invading Chechnya
| and starting the Second Chechen War. He then used that
| popularity to become essentially dictator for life.
|
| These bombings were blamed on Chechens- who hotly denied
| it. It has long been suspected- but not really proven-
| that the FSB was behind it, as a true False Flag
| operation to gin up support for invading Chechnya, done
| under the orders of former KGB/FSB agent Vladimir Putin
| who just happened to be the one to benefit most from the
| attacks. You can see the wikipedia page at https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombing... to see
| more details on exactly what the evidence for this is,
| and the people who argue that there is just not enough
| evidence one way or another to assign responsibility.
|
| So, no, Russia was not "overtly copy the US model" if
| anything they were innovating it first and the US was
| copying.
| lazide wrote:
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889)]
| Spanish American war?
|
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
| ] Gulf of Tonkin?
|
| The tail wagging the dog is as old as, well, government.
| Probably older. Nothing new under the sun, etc. etc.
| ajuc wrote:
| Russian Orthodox church today is openly run by russian state
| officials, military, police, fsb members, etc.
|
| They are also openly supporting invasion of Ukraine as a kind
| of "holy war".
|
| The russian word for "non-government organization" is
| "foreign agent".
| maratc wrote:
| That's true, but there's a need to put that information in
| the proper context. First, there's nothing new or
| surprising about it, as the official Russian Orthodox
| church has historically been under the state's control.
| This goes back to middle ages and Tsars. It would not be
| reasonable to expect any opposition from them. And second,
| most of their faithful agree with them on the Ukraine
| issues.
| ajuc wrote:
| The agreement of "regular Russians" is a very curious
| thing. From talking with Russians they weren't expecting
| or supporting a war with Ukraine even a week before it
| started.
|
| It was a western lie that Putin wants to invade Ukraine
| up to the second it happened, and then it became
| obviously the only possible choice overnight.
|
| The most important thing to understand about Russians is
| that they were trained for centuries to be passive
| cynical conformists. It mostly worked. There are some
| actual nationalists who want the war. But most Russians
| view them as madmen who are "sticking out" and will
| suffer for it eventually. It's as stupid to be openly
| unpatriotic as it is to be too patriotic. See girkin.
|
| Most Russians just subconsciously detect the safest
| position and orient themselves accordingly. Not because
| of conscious fear, simply by default. If Navalny became
| Russian president - the next day 80% of Russians would be
| completely persuaded they were always against the war.
| Orthodox church doesn't have much influence, IMHO, it's
| just aligned like everything else.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| > Most Russians just subconsciously detect the safest
| position and orient themselves accordingly. Not because
| of conscious fear, simply by default.
|
| Most Americans do exactly the same. Look at the reaction
| to 9/11 and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and
| Iraq.
|
| The vast majority of Americans couldn't identify either
| of those countries on a map let alone understand their
| history and culture yet it was "safe" to go along with it
| lest you be called unpatriotic.
| ajuc wrote:
| Now imagine 9/11 hadn't happened and USA invades Iraq
| after denying it for months. What would be the response
| of the opposition voters? :)
|
| In USA it's about 50/50 on almost every issue. It's
| nothing like Russia. In USA a significant percentage of
| population openly protested Obama on the point that he
| isn't American. Try that with Putin :)
| adolph wrote:
| It sounds like what you are saying is that like Russia
| the US invades when it serves whatever happens to be the
| interest of the establishment clique but unlike Russia
| the US ignores ineffective protests.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| _> Most Americans do exactly the same._
|
| I don't think it's the same at all. Attitudes towards the
| Iraq war changed massively during the presidency of
| George W Bush [1]. They didn't suddenly flip when Obama
| came into office.
|
| Also, looking at America today from the outside, what I
| see is a very polarised country with very entrenched
| opinions that I don't see changing much regardless of who
| wins the next election.
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/2008/03/19/public-
| attitudes-towa...
| khokhol wrote:
| _Attitudes towards the Iraq war changed massively during
| the presidency of George W Bush [1]._
|
| Sure it changed once they saw the (wholly predictable)
| actual reality of the war. But the fact that a solid
| majority supported the debacle at the outset, despite
| Bush's lies at the time being roughly on par with Putin's
| lies about Ukraine today (in terms of being transparently
| BS) -- does tend to support the point the above commenter
| is making.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| Not at all. A majority of Americans changed their minds
| in opposition to the sitting president who had started
| the war. This directly contradicts the point the above
| commenter was making.
| dh2022 wrote:
| In USA hundreds of thousands of people protested against
| the Iraq war : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_aga
| inst_the_Iraq_War
|
| Is not even comparable.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| This is only one political party. When the government
| changes hands, republicans will openly change their
| entire worldview about, for example, the economy, despite
| it being impossible anything actually changed, while
| democrats largely don't.
|
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republicans-
| pessimistic... I mean christ, look at that graph.
| Republican opinion changed overnight. There are even more
| examples for this exact effect. Seems when republican
| voters say "economy", they might mean something else.
|
| People constantly paint America with a single brush. What
| you see on CNN, MSNBC, FOX etc isn't America. We get shit
| on constantly for doing that to other countries so it's
| always annoying when others do exactly that to us.
| apercu wrote:
| > If Navalny became Russian president - the next day 80%
| of Russians would be completely persuaded they were
| always against the war.
|
| I'm not sure Navalny is against the occupation on Crimea
| and Ukraine, there's nuance there, he has said he's
| against the Russian Military interventions, but he is
| still a Russian nationalist and has (to my knowledge)
| been against the conduct of the war and wants a
| diplomatic solution but it's not clear to me that he
| would have ever "given" Crimea back.
| ajuc wrote:
| Well he's murdered now. He was trying to position himself
| as "reasonable" during "Crimea is ours" euphoria, I'm not
| sure but I'd expect him to return all the annexed
| territories if he got in power after the full scale
| invasion. Russia would need to do it anyway to get
| sanctions removed.
| apercu wrote:
| > I'm not sure but I'd expect him to return all the
| annexed territories if he got in power
|
| We'll never know, but I "feel" like that would have
| damaged him politically had he been in power in Russia
| and therefore doubt he would have. But again, we'll never
| know. And it's purely theoretical, even if he wasn't
| dead, there is no scenario that I can realistically think
| where Putin would have allowed Navalny to replace him,
| absent the FSB/oligarchs assassinating Putin. But even
| there, I suspect Navalny would still have been murdered
| and we'd still just get "Putin-lite"
| maratc wrote:
| > If Navalny became Russian president
|
| I have lots of respect to the guy, but realistically the
| only scenario where he would become Russian president
| would be if the vote for the Russian presidency was
| conducted in the West. He would win a landslide victory.
| In Russia though, if you go outside Moscow and
| St.Petersburg, it's not that people are against him --
| they simply never heard of him.
|
| In the USSR in the 80s there was a lot of talk of one
| Angela Davis. She was presented as "the only opposition
| leader" or something. There's no doubt that if the
| election for POTUS was conducted in the USSR, she'd win
| over Reagan by a huge margin. In the USA though not many
| people knew who she was. So Navalny is the Angela Davis
| in reverse -- the media across the border makes him look
| like punching in the weight category he does not really
| belong to.
|
| Regarding Russian political landscape, you can look in
| any corner, from Gorbachev to Solzhenytsin and anything
| in between. There are not many points that these people
| could all agree on. But not a single Russian politician
| was comfortable with the thought of Ukraine joining NATO.
| And this includes Navalny too.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| > _The russian word for "non-government organization" is
| "foreign agent"._
|
| Thats pretty accurate though.
| ajuc wrote:
| It's not, and westerners who think they agree don't
| actually agree, they are just edgy. It's hard to even
| explain what it would mean to internalize this belief
| system.
|
| Let me try. We're you ever on an amateur IT conference?
| Comicon? Some sports event? Would it ever occur to you to
| assume some government is secretly behind it? When the
| Jehova witnesses or scientologists knock on your door -
| which government is financing them to do it and why?
| After all people don't do things for free.
| brookst wrote:
| It's just the reductive pedantry that's so popular on the
| internet. A CIA operative is the agent of a foreign
| government, therefore a foreign agent.
|
| A Doctors Without Borders medic is an agent of a foreign
| organization, therefore a foreign agent.
|
| Therefore CIA and DWB are essentially the same thing.
| Bonus points if you can find one case where a DWB
| volunteer also had ties to the CIA, which would totally
| expose the two orgs as being exactly the same in all ways
| at all times.
|
| For some reason people just can't resist reductionism.
| fragmede wrote:
| > For some reason people just can't resist reductionism.
|
| Being a bit reductive there, eh?
|
| :)
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| Comicon is not what people mean by NGOs being covert
| state department ops. Here is an explanation you're not
| going to watch:
| https://x.com/NewFounding/status/1727493568325935109
| ajuc wrote:
| Russians actually believe both Majdans were CIA. Putin
| actually believed Ukrainians won't resist the invasion
| because all the protests were staged by USA. It's
| inconceivable to them that a civil society is a thing.
|
| NGOs in Russia ALL have to register as foreign agents.
| Including the ones who organize comicons etc.
|
| This is the reason I told you you don't actually
| understand.
|
| As for your video I don't have that much time for
| propaganda, care to summarize it?
| epistasis wrote:
| So funny that you are downvoted, this is exactly right
| and perfectly clear to anyone who is remotely familiar
| with the area, or Russian society.
| fragmede wrote:
| That's a 90 minute video. Even at double speed that's
| still 45 minutes. you'll have to make your point mire
| succinctly if you want to get your point across.
|
| "That's not what people meant". No, people are pointing
| out holes in your reductionism.
| randomname93857 wrote:
| where do you live? I think any civilized country has many
| local ngos that help abused animals, or provide mental
| support for children or abused women, or support some
| medical initiatives, etc...
| simpletone wrote:
| > Russian Orthodox church today is openly run by russian
| state officials, military, police, fsb members, etc.
|
| Official state churches are part of the state.
|
| > They are also openly supporting invasion of Ukraine as a
| kind of "holy war".
|
| What about a holy war to bring democracy and freedom to
| ukraine. Would that make it better?
|
| > The russian word for "non-government organization" is
| "foreign agent".
|
| It's everyone's word for NGOs. Haven't we been attacking
| chinese 'ngos' as being 'foreign agents'? It isn't a secret
| that we've been using NGOs as intelligence fronts for a
| very long time. What do you think NGOs exist to do? Provide
| aid? Help foreign countries?
| lukan wrote:
| The patriarch of the Orthodox church, Kyrill, was literally
| a KGB buddy of Putin.
|
| Funny was how they try to present them as modest, but
| cannot properly remove their Rolex out of a picture (or
| bother not wearing a Rolex).
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17622820
|
| Hard to imagine, how anyone can believe such people in a
| spiritual way.
| mellutussa wrote:
| > EUR1.9 billion in assets it claimed were being held somewhere
| in the world
|
| I really hate it when I leave my billions somewhere in the
| world and can't remember where.
| FabHK wrote:
| There was a personal assistant who stole around GBP 4m from
| several of her bosses at Goldman Sachs. One of the bankers
| finally noticed when a 6-figure donation to Harvard bounced.
| One of other the victims later testified that his investment
| account felt "one or two million light".
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/secretary-who-
| ha...
| mrguyorama wrote:
| My friend once stated that "Financial security is when you
| don't know which day of the week your paycheck gets direct
| deposited".
|
| Imagine being so unfathomably wealthy you don't even know
| how much cash you should have control over from one day to
| the next. Actually don't, it's bad for your brain.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Don't you just hate it when you can't recall if you were
| supposed to have 1 or 2 million on your investment account?
| userulluipeste wrote:
| _" One of other the victims later testified that his
| investment account felt <<one or two million light>>"_
|
| You left the best part out: "...but could not trace the
| money and decided he was mistaken."
|
| JFC!
| jgalt212 wrote:
| If you pay the Big 4 enough money, they will look the other way
| or not ask for supporting documentation. Just google accounting
| scandals and see just how many of these shops were audited by
| the Big 4.
| toyg wrote:
| Any tax authority worth their budget should require extra
| evidence from _any_ Big-4 customer. By now it 's clear they
| are less reliable than your average smalltown accountant.
|
| Unfortunately, there is typically a big revolving door
| between them and any tax institution. Why toil for decades in
| underpaid public roles, when you can step into the gilded
| world of consultancy and double or treble your salary? It's
| like the yacht scene in _The Wolf of Wall Street_ , except in
| real life most civil servants take the corrupting deal (and I
| can't even blame them).
| hef19898 wrote:
| The audits done by the Big 5 in this context have nothing
| to do with taxes so.
| kortilla wrote:
| Lol, if audits had to do with taxes and not defrauding
| investors, this would have made sense.
| brookst wrote:
| It really depends on the terms of the audit. Routine
| financial audits are not intended to be exhaustive forensic
| audits that assume every document might be forged as part of
| a massive fraud.
|
| Most audits are just "does the documentation support the
| reporting".
| cortesoft wrote:
| Isn't that just because most of the biggest companies are
| audited by the Big 4, and in order to be a big accounting
| scandal, you need to be a big company?
|
| I feel like this is pointing out something like, "More
| criminals drive Ford trucks than any other truck" which is
| true, but just because more people drive that brand than any
| other?
|
| Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1138/
| hef19898 wrote:
| EY believed the documents shown to them. Sloppy for sure, and
| EY got their amount of flak for it.
|
| People litteraly went to the banks in Asia during the
| extraordinary audit, something that is not usually done during
| "normal" audits.
|
| And yes, I also hate when I misplace my billions. Especially
| since I have yet to relocate them...
| omega3 wrote:
| > EY believed the documents shown to them. Sloppy for sure,
| and EY got their amount of flak for it.
|
| There are strict rules and guidelines around verifying an
| asset. The auditor isn't supposed to "believe the documents"
| - they need to form an independent opinion.^1
|
| If the auditor is unable to obtain sufficient appropriate
| audit evidence to verify the asset, they can issue a
| qualified opinion due to a scope limitation.
|
| ^1 https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/member/discover/cpd-
| article...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Good nitpick. Thing is, the proof EY got from Wirecard was
| good enough to meet these thresholds, at least I never read
| or heard anything else. All that evidence was fabricated,
| of course.
|
| What EY did was ignoring all the warning signs they had:
| money laundering, making up business, fraud and all that.
|
| EY also wanted the proof the standards it seemingly met,
| that was the failure. But then those audits are not really
| meant to find organized fraud at a company to begin with.
| omega3 wrote:
| > Thing is, the proof EY got from Wirecard was good
| enough to meet these thresholds
|
| It objectively wasn't. I've never heard of a case where
| the auditor doesn't independently verify the bank account
| balance with the bank itself. More reliable evidence
| reduces the need for additional corroborating evidence.
| In general the evidence obtained from the company itself
| wouldn't be considered reliable by itself.
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/db9fa3d7-11da-476e-beea-d5ed0a
| d13...
|
| This wasn't some hard to uncover marvel of accounting
| fraud using complex financial engineering.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Always happy to be corrwcted and learn something new,
| unfortunately the FT link is behind a paywall...
|
| If memory serves well so, it is quite a while I read Dan
| McCrum's book, Wirecard produced documents from the Asian
| banks (fake ones, as we now know). Of course, and I
| couldn't agree more, they should have at least called the
| banks up. Especially since a German fin-tech start-up,
| with on-going bad press, claims to hold _billions_ with
| some Asian banks from business activities directly
| related to said accussations circulating in the press. EY
| deserves all the flak it got.
|
| That being said, again, if a company wants to defraud its
| auditors, they can for surprisingly long periods if they
| try hard enough.
|
| I think, we basically agree.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| From what I gather they not only called the bank, but
| actually _went_ to a branch in the Philippines. They
| spoke to a clerk, took a picture of a screen showing a
| balance. But the branch office was fake.
|
| https://www.ft.com/content/bcadbdcb-5cd7-487e-afdd-1e9268
| 31e...
| naasking wrote:
| > I've never heard of a case where the auditor doesn't
| independently verify the bank account balance with the
| bank itself
|
| Didn't they setup a whole fake bank branch? Sufficiently
| motivated actors can circumvent any preventative
| measures.
| hermitdev wrote:
| > And yes, I also hate when I misplace my billions.
| Especially since I have yet to relocate them...
|
| I think you're joking, but I'm not sure. I work in trading,
| and I've been on the receiving end of that phone call. As I
| recall, it was around 9PM in the US, my work phone rang and
| could see from the caller ID that it was from our London
| office. There were no greetings, first words I hear were
| "We're missing over a billion dollars. You need to find
| it...NOW."
|
| When I received that call, it was in the middle of the 2008
| financial crisis. The daily PnL swings were wild, and it
| wasn't always clear on the cause. FX volatility was insane.
| We did all of our PNL reporting in USD, but held a lot of
| foreign assets.
|
| There was no malfeasance; I'd just taken ownership of the
| system a week or two before, and a nightly job had silently
| failed. Perl job on Windows, extracting data from a 3rd party
| trading system that wasn't built w/ integrations in mind,
| feeding it into in-house systems. It was a very flimsy house
| of cards. A gentle breeze in the night would knock it over.
| Rewrote the integration in Python, hooked everything up into
| our monitored job scheduler. Had to do some janky UI
| automations in Python until we got the vendor to add a proper
| CLI-based reporting mechanisms. It was a "fun" ride, but I
| eventually got my evenings back. Did cause the end of a
| relationship, though, so there's that.
| Andrex wrote:
| Would have been nice to have seen some of that billion you
| found, I'm sure.
| pas wrote:
| it was not lost after all, so it couldn't even have been
| found. how ironic.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| welcome to your new career in professional finance
| services
| hef19898 wrote:
| I was joking, the max I ever "lost" was a couple 100k of
| inventory, the majority of it was recovered and the
| reminder, as far as I know, covered by insurance. Also a,
| surprisingly similar, fun story involving just slightly
| different interpetation and handling of messages between
| our and the service providers WMS, which screwed up things
| in ways I never thought possible. And almost went
| unnoticed, after all even with top notch metrics and my
| borderline paranoia the issue went on for almost three
| weeks before we caught it.
|
| I can only imagine so the slight shock you had after that
| phone call so! I love those stories from the trenches so
| you hear on HN, thanks for sharing!
| paganel wrote:
| A lot less money involved, but I remember my boss at the
| time (we were a small mortgage broker in Eastern Europe)
| asking me to write a quick Python script that would
| automatically get the daily Libor number and save it into
| our DB.
|
| Seeing as I was hearing about Libor all day, every day
| (almost all of our clients had their mortgages computed on
| that piece of info), I had expected it to be something
| "automatic" (like at least an XML thingie) and well
| documented. Instead I had to parse some html on a page
| somewhere (I remember some yellow background) and hope that
| the HTML structure around that Libor figure would remain
| unchanged.
|
| This was all happening around 2007 - early 2008, suffice is
| to say that when all the Libor scandal happened a little
| later on I was not at all surprised.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I remember some internet arguments on Libor when I
| researched how it was determined and everyone disagreed
| with me because of how much was based on it.
|
| It's just survey data, and no verification of whether a
| loan can happen at that rate? And you throw away the
| lowest rates, which should be the market-clearing rate
| all-the-things-being-equal if lenders are fungible? And
| if lenders aren't fungible, then isn't it all apples and
| oranges?
| smallnamespace wrote:
| High finance even fairly recently (80s) was based on
| handshakes and trust. The value of contracts tied to
| LIBOR grew by an order of magnitude or two while the
| definition of LIBOR wasn't adjusted.
|
| Why wasn't it fixed? Because replacing it would require
| an enormous amount of coordination and there was no clear
| evidence that it was broken. When that changed it finally
| got replaced by SOFR.
| aragonite wrote:
| Off-topic, but I can't help but notice you've been spelling
| 'literally' as either 'litterally' or (less frequently)
| 'litteraly' for 5 years!
|
| Occurrences of 'litterally' your comments:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.
| ..
|
| Occurrences of 'litteraly' in your comments:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.
| ..
| sonofhans wrote:
| You're the comment stalker everyone needs :)
| hef19898 wrote:
| I did not know one could pull that kind of data from my
| posts here, I am equally impressed and terrified...
|
| Usually, I comment on mobile. And if I realized one thing,
| my orthography takes a very serious hit when typing on a
| phone, compared to a proper keyboard or handwriting.
| rchaud wrote:
| EY offices in Singapore knew that their revenues were not
| traceable (Wirecard invented clients based in Asia). They hired
| a law firm to investigate, but the head office in Europe
| suppressed the findings because they wanted the contract.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Did this come up during the EY trials? Because this is the
| forat time I ever heard that.
| Beijinger wrote:
| No, they did ask. And got Bank statements. They even went to a
| subsidiary branch of the bank and confirmed that the money
| exits in Indonesia (or was it the Philippines?). The problem:
| This bank had no branch in Singapore (or wherever it was). He
| set up a fake branch with actors that showed EY computer
| statements - EY took pictures of the screens - with the
| balance.
|
| You can't make this up. EY screwed up, but they could not have
| reasonably assumed that someone sets up a fake bank branch.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Yes I know they did ask.
|
| As the responsible manager for IT (usually CTO - internal SOX
| was a different matter) I have been "asked" by EY (and KPMG)
| about IT setups and security several times for audits. And I
| could have told them whatever I like, the people were right
| out of university with no clue about the matter and in no
| position to ask the right questions except reading their
| checklist; I always had the impression they only knew half
| the words they were reading.
| 19h wrote:
| Did you remove Wirecard from your LinkedIn?
| alsetmusic wrote:
| > Did you remove Wirecard from your LinkedIn?
|
| [Not the person you replied to.]
|
| Did the person you replied to work for LinkedIn? What's
| the context for this question?
| 19h wrote:
| I was just curious and visited the LinkedIn profile
| that's linked to from the ctone.ws website (in
| KingOfCoders's profile) and was wondering why Wirecard
| was omitted.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| Why on earth would you assume the OP was affiliated with
| Wirecard?
| renewiltord wrote:
| I believe the term is "hallucinations". LLMs have fewer
| of them than many humans.
| Sebguer wrote:
| Are you thinking their post is indicating that they were
| part of the Wirecard audits? They're saying they've
| undergone similar audits.
| Beijinger wrote:
| No, since I did not work for Wirecard. But my resume is
| so bad, I wish I had Wirecard on it.
| consp wrote:
| KPMG asked me once: "Can you show it's actually encrypted?"
|
| Do you have any programming skills? ... No? Then no. Then
| they started blabbing about what the data could be and it
| basically came down on them not understanding what random
| is and they then just checked it off and went on. Since
| then I do not believe any audit which come from those paper
| farms.
| wolfi1 wrote:
| I once saw the acronym translated as "Keiner pruft mehr
| genau" (No one does checking accurately any more)
| summarity wrote:
| Also "Kinder prufen meine Gesellschaft"
| kreck wrote:
| And ,,Kommen, prufen, meckern, gehen"
| lukan wrote:
| Translation service:
|
| "Kinder prufen meine Gesellschaft"
|
| children check my company
|
| ,,Kommen, prufen, meckern, gehen"
|
| come, check, complain, go
|
| KPMG seems to have quite a reputation.
| namibj wrote:
| Double-meaning: s/mehr genau/genauer/
|
| Though that reading is a bit weird, it's practical enough
| to tickle the funny.
| Aloisius wrote:
| > Can you show it's actually encrypted?
|
| When someone asks a question like this, they're not
| literally asking you to show them it.
|
| They just want an expert to confirm it they could show
| it, so they can check off their box for due diligence.
|
| Congratulations. You were the expert.
| namdnay wrote:
| I think the role of an auditor is to make sure all the
| right questions have been asked and record who answered and
| what they answered. Asking them to be guarantors of truth
| is maybe putting a bit too much faith in a non-judicial
| investigation
| lukan wrote:
| "Asking them to be guarantors of truth is maybe putting a
| bit too much faith in a non-judicial investigation"
|
| But them knowing what they are checking, is maybe a
| reasonable ask?
| someguydave wrote:
| It was the Philippines. Wirecard hired a Philippine lawyer
| Tolentino (who was also a government minister) to make up a
| fake trust that held the fake money
|
| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1441886/ex-dotr-exec-others-
| fa...
|
| "The NBI said Arellano, an employee at the BPI branch in
| Malate, Manila, had admitted to receiving P10 million for
| issuing bogus bank certification documents that Tolentino and
| his law office needed as the supposed local trustee of
| Wirecard."
|
| I guess it goes to show that if you are dealing with enough
| cash to bribe third world governments then all kinds of new
| fraud schemes become possible.
| dmix wrote:
| > if you are dealing with enough cash to bribe third world
| governments
|
| We shouldn't discount the connections a GRU agent would
| have in 3rd world govs, they know who is corrupt enough (or
| able to be coerced) to do their bidding. Fake banks
| accounts is pretty old stuff in the spying world. It's not
| _just_ money.
| Log_out_ wrote:
| Well, Russian orthodox church was always cheka all the way from
| the top?
| badcppdev wrote:
| Are there other news sites carrying this?
|
| The stories about the threats against the journalist Dan McCrum
| who was investigating Wirecard between 2014 and 2020 are mental.
|
| I've just checked and McCrum has shared this link as well on
| Twitter so I count that as a reason to trust it.
| jcmp wrote:
| It was in cooperation with a lot of the main german news
| outlets like "Der Spiegel"[1] and "der Standard"[2] both are
| german tho ;) [1]
| https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/wirecard-skandal-...
| [2]https://www.derstandard.de/consent/tcf/story/3000000209638/m
| ...
| badcppdev wrote:
| Thank you. Der Spiegel had a paywall as well which slowed me
| down
| rallyforthesun wrote:
| https://archive.is/xZq5p
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| I know I am nitpicking, but "Der Standard" is Austrian.
| hef19898 wrote:
| And there I was, believing Marsalek was just another useful
| idiot, and not a full blown GRU operative.
|
| I ahve to say, I am impressed a little bit. Just puzzled about
| the whole goal of this operation. And bit worried the Wirecard
| management standing trial right now, can use this to get away
| with the fraud they actively engaged in.
| md_ wrote:
| I have not yet read the above linked article, so maybe it
| already says (or refutes) this, but the long-held rumor was
| that Wirecard was a useful mechanism for Russians to move
| around dark money--e.g. for sanctions evasion or payola.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Don't forget money laundering. It is just tad too high
| profile for my, compketely unprofessional, taste. Worked
| long enough so, didn't it?
| dogman144 wrote:
| Goal - money laundering in Europe via a well known and
| respected payment processor. Full stop.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Why did they burn it to the ground them? Why does
| Petlinsky, who tells the whole story, talks to Spiegel in
| Dubai? Why the prospective spy Marsalek is driven around
| the country and gets to know all the namedrops?
|
| If something, it seems that Petlinsky is a German agent in
| Russia. I'm not even sure if the article denies it, too
| much of a wall of text.
| rsynnott wrote:
| FT:
| https://www.ft.com/content/f15610a0-e94d-4672-bc73-f2e5e364f...
| apendleton wrote:
| They broke the story, so I think if anyone else is carrying it,
| it will be framed as "new report says X" rather than their own
| independent reporting. But Michael Weiss has written for the
| Daily Beast, New Lines Magazine, CNN, etc., and Christo Grozev
| runs Bellingcat, which has a long track record of breaking big
| stories and winning investigative journalism awards, especially
| vis a vis Russia.
| npalli wrote:
| The Netflix documentary [1] on the Wirecard scandal [2] is great.
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21836620/
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal
| OskarS wrote:
| The book it's based on, Money Men by Dan McCrum, is also a
| spectacular read.
| npalli wrote:
| Indeed. Dan McCrum is prominently figured in the documentary
| as well.
| this_user wrote:
| McCrum had already pointed out that Marsalek was at least
| looking for connections intelligence services, had confirmed
| connections to at least some former intelligence operatives,
| and that there were a lot of pieces of evidence that pointed
| to the strong possibility of connection to Russia. He just
| didn't find definitive proof, but that was also not the
| primary focus of his book.
| rchaud wrote:
| Yes the book mentions towards the end that Marsalek's
| location was unknown, but possibly in Russia or Belarus
| where Interpol would not be able to do much.
| philshem wrote:
| Another author but a fascinating New Yorker article on the
| same subject
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/how-the-
| bigges...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Highly recommended as well from my side!
| rchaud wrote:
| Very good read, especially for those who enjoyed Bad Blood,
| the Theranos book by the WSJ reporter who helped uncover the
| scam.
| neilkk wrote:
| It is a good book, but it isn't completely candid about one
| part of the FT's investigation.
|
| When Dan McCrum was under threat of arrest in Germany, that
| was because Paul Murphy, Dan's editor, did in fact give away
| to some of his contacts the fact that they were coming out
| with a negative story on Wirecard and the time it would be
| published. Murphy has form for trading his own scoops with
| stock traders for favours. The Wirecard recording of one of
| Murphy's mates talking about shorting Wirecard to take
| advantage of the story is accurate and had Murphy (but I very
| much doubt McCrum) bang to rights.
|
| McCrum's explanation for this is that Murphy's associates
| knew the exact time of the story being released because they
| had happened to guess it by sheer luck. Clearly if that's
| what Murphy told him he should have been a little more
| skeptical.
|
| Ultimately the FT's internal investigation into Paul Murphy's
| behaviour and BaFin's into McCrum's work were abandoned for
| the same reason: the Wirecard revelations were legit, and
| much more serious than Murphy's breaches of journalistic
| ethics.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Ah, the "FT is conspiring with shortsellers to ruin
| Wirecard" BS Wirecard was aggressively pushing back the
| day.
|
| Just shows how persistent lies and propaganda can be.
| FabHK wrote:
| Eh? That's not the argument. The argument is that an FT
| editor couldn't keep his mouth shut ~and was complicit in
| insider trading.~
|
| The other (baseless) accusations you're talking about
| (and that led BaFin to investigate the FT) are
| extensively covered in the book.
|
| Edit: Not sure it was insider trading, or illegal. Just
| probably not in line with FT standards.
| hef19898 wrote:
| You do know that there is a difference between letting
| information slip and actively participating in insider
| trading?
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| I'm pretty ignorant of this issue.
|
| But if the trade came up as a matter of an investigator
| researching a company, and communicating with people
| about the details. Even if they disclosed the exact time
| they planned on publishing this information, is it
| insider trading?
|
| Wouldn't you have to been privy to information from
| inside the company itself? Otherwise anybody could have
| investigated this person, and had equal opportunity to
| discover negative things to expose?
| ahtihn wrote:
| Knowing that a negative article will be published about
| _another_ company is not insider information?
| namdnay wrote:
| Given FT had no financial interest in wirecard I'm not
| sure it's insider trading? Breach of the code of conduct
| of FT and basic journalistic ethics of course, but using
| investigators to find out bad things about companies and
| using that information to trade is pretty normal and not
| insider trading
| currymj wrote:
| it probably technically wouldn't be insider trading in
| the US but I think the laws may be different in Europe.
| JackFr wrote:
| It's not insider trading as there is no material non-
| public information involved. Were the information false,
| it would likely be actionable market manipulation. But
| because the information was true, from the perspective of
| the authorities nothing wrong here.
|
| On the other hand, there may be ethical (but not legal)
| issues from the perspective of the publisher.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| requires a total remake considering all the extra context
| coming to light now.
| namdnay wrote:
| The documentary was pretty clear about it being 99% certain
| Marsalek was connected
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| I recall it was hinted at in the last episode only. the
| langue in the documentary seemed more like "alleged" ... it
| is very different from what is published in this report.
| shopping for a mercenary army in Libya = Not just a
| different ball-game, but an entirely different sport.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| "King Of Stonks" [1] is also pretty entertaining and inspired
| by the Wirecard scandal and pretty fun to watch.
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15407486/
| cs702 wrote:
| I still cannot believe the last photo in the article, showing him
| in his current disguise as an orthodox priest.
| locallost wrote:
| It's not him, but the man whose identity he apparently took.
| Says so in the image caption.
| jonpo wrote:
| Not a surprise but useful to have it confirmed
| SXX wrote:
| It's not the first story like this and not the last.
|
| Right now there is still NASDAQ traded "Freedom Holding Corp"
| (FRHC) originated from Kazahstan with primary business of fueling
| sanctioned Russian money and doing other shady business in ex-
| USSR. Everyone knows they mass open accounts for Russia residents
| remotely and no one cares.
|
| It's not like there are no other banks doing the same, but none
| of them are owned by US-based entity traded on NASDAQ. SEC
| certainly wont care until it implode on thousands of retail
| investors. Going after crypto is far more important.
|
| And there are more financial institutions that have banking
| licenses around the globe (including US, EU and UK) with primary
| source of income from money laundering and again no one cares
| until they grow too big or scam all their customers and
| investors.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| You have a point. On the other hand, some actions can serve as
| a sort of surveillance. Where exactly goes the money? It is
| like a honeypot or observing your suspects.
|
| Shutting down would undoubtedly help, on the other side,
| understanding systems and beneficiaries needs to be handled in
| a different manner.
| SXX wrote:
| That's all great until one day said banking group land on SDN
| sanctions list losing everything that retail investors who
| been dumb enough put into it. There are plenty of Turkish and
| UAE banks that do the same money laundering, but they are not
| traded on NASDAQ.
|
| UPD: In any case my point is not talking about this situation
| specifically, but just pointing out US has it's own Wirecard
| and likely are there far more than one example. This is just
| one I know.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Any idea as to why they haven't been investigated and/or de-
| listed? Is it really just that no one cares? That seems insane
| to me but I don't know much about the financial services space
| SXX wrote:
| > Any idea as to why they haven't been investigated and/or
| de-listed?
|
| I'm not SEC to know that.
|
| > Is it really just that no one cares?
|
| There was some investigation by Hindenburg Research, but
| since it's mostly OSINT with bunch of forum screenshots and
| public records it did not gain that much publicity:
|
| https://hindenburgresearch.com/freedom/
|
| PS: Just to be clear my source of information is not some
| journalist aricle or Hindenburg Research. I just opened said
| bank account for myself along with many many other people who
| never in their life been to Kazakhstan.
| zone411 wrote:
| It actually gained a lot of publicity because Hindenburg
| has a pretty good track record and many people are paying
| attention to them. There is zero chance financial
| regulators didn't see it. FRHC got a law firm to review
| some of their allegations:
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/freedom-holding-corp-
| announce.... (I have no position).
| SXX wrote:
| Yeah they hired some law firm to cover for them.
|
| Except even last month they been opening bank accounts
| for anyone and everyone left and right including
| providing means for very-very-shady registration of
| Kazakhstan Tax-ID (SSN) remotely.
|
| And until a week ago you could literally send money from
| a bank cards of some Russian sanctioned banks to them and
| it just worked. Now when Russia payment system provider
| itself been sanctioned it's no longer works, but
| fortunately now they'll gladly accept money transfers
| from their ex-subsidiary that they of course sold a year
| ago, etc.
|
| Again it's very much possible that from legal standpoint
| everything they do is "legal". Just dont be surprised why
| Wirecard wasn't caught by EU authorities earlier. I
| pretty certain Wirecard also had great law firms working
| for them.
| zone411 wrote:
| That's not how it works. It's a major independent law
| firm and there is no chance they'd risk their reputation
| to cover for FRHC. If there are problems with how FRHC
| operates (I have no idea), they'd just ask the law firm
| to investigate only specific legal things.
| negus wrote:
| Why helping to exfiltrate the money out of Russia is bad? Don't
| you think that this is much better for the goals of the western
| sanctions than preventing money from going out of the country?
|
| I'm a Russian guy (with a Freedom bank KZ account), who
| publicly condemn the barbaric invasion and thus is threatened
| by the homeland's so called authorities. A guy who left Russia
| after the war has started in order to stop at least paying
| taxes that fuel this war (and to avoid being sent to the
| frontline as well). Who have been living, working and paying
| taxes in the EU since then. I want the war to stop ASAP from
| the very first day. As well as having the responsible maniacs
| to face the trial.
|
| And I see many of the sanctions counter-productive.
|
| Can you imagine what it took to get my savings (before calling
| it "blood money", keep in mind, that I always supported the
| opposition, never worked for the government-affilated entities
| and tried my best to prevent this war) to the European banks
| with all this witch-hunt and passport-based discrimination.
|
| Would you really prefer my money to stay in Russia and work for
| the benefit of the war?
| SXX wrote:
| You really missed point of my post here. This is not about
| sanctions or getting money out of Russia. It's about the fact
| that one big piece of money laundering institution with very
| shady finances being owned by US holding company that is
| traded on NASDAQ. That's it.
|
| SEC is going after everything related to crypto, but gives no
| damns about some bs money laundering operation being traded
| on NASDAQ. This is exactly what Wirecard was in EU, but on
| smaller scale.
| Sakos wrote:
| What do you think the money is used for abroad? Helping fight
| against climate change or feeding the hungry in Africa? No,
| Putin's regime needs that money outside of Russia to fund
| useful idiots who further his cause in the US and Europe.
| morbicer wrote:
| Not a surprise considering what Citizen Lab found out.
|
| https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/79/
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| The UK has just concluded its investigation into "steakknife" -
| an IRA killer who was also working for British army and killed
| people on both sides seemingly with impunity.
|
| I am guessing there is a mental hurdle in committing larger and
| larger crimes, but having "permission" from a government spy
| agency probably makes such things easier.
|
| It's ok to commit this crime - I have permission so it's not
| really a crime.
|
| The point is, no-one sees themselves as the bad guy.
| tagyro wrote:
| Next up, Solaris Bank and Vivid Money, that is, if BaFin wakes
| up.
| geff82 wrote:
| Solaris Bank is Deutsche Bank.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Which could be used as another reason to look into them,
| right?
| tagyro wrote:
| what?! no, they are a _german_ bank (which translates to
| "deutsche bank" in german) but there is no connection (afaik,
| my infos are 2+ years old now) between Solaris and Deutsche
| Bank AG.
| sveme wrote:
| Why solaris bank? A lot if startups are relying on them, what's
| wrong with them? Though TradeRepublic moved away from them,
| makes you wonder.
| tagyro wrote:
| Last I've heard BaFin actually appointed a special
| investigator [0] to Solaris
|
| [0]: https://www.bafin.de/SharedDocs/Veroeffentlichungen/DE/M
| assn...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Though TradeRepublic moved away from them, makes you
| wonder.
|
| TR got its own full-bank license a few months ago [1], it
| makes sense for them to consolidate stuff in-house instead of
| paying third parties for their services. That is useful as a
| startup with a few thousand customers, as the requirements of
| actually building a bank tech stack are quite massive, but TR
| has >4M customers now and makes a profit [2].
|
| [1] https://www.capital.de/geld-versicherungen/trade-
| republic-er...
|
| [2] https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/fintech/neob
| rok...
| dosinga wrote:
| > Then as now, the internet's truly big business came from
| revenues connected to gambling and pornography
|
| This is an idea you hear quite often, but seems very unlikely to
| be actually true. Internet's truly big businesses are the truly
| big businesses of the big tech companies
| dewey wrote:
| One example: 0.7% of the countries GDP for the Philippines is
| related to their gambling infrastructure:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Offshore_Gaming_O...
| whatamidoingyo wrote:
| I'd agree. Big tech is used all day, every day. People aren't
| browsing porn sites while they're at work (at least, most
| aren't). However, I can't imagine how many people are browsing
| at night.
| rchaud wrote:
| Being at work doesn't preempt anybody from using their phone.
| A lot of people watch porn without necessarily needing to
| excuse themselves.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Using Big Tech and paying money are two different things. A
| US user is worth about $13 each quarter to Facebook. A
| customer on a cam site will pay more than that for a minute
| private show probably. One porn DVD, etc.
| bsder wrote:
| But they are very much browsing their fantasy sports gambling
| sites.
|
| And they browse porn at work more than you think.
|
| Story time:
|
| Stupid youngster me is tasked with getting the "tape out" of
| one of our microprocessors designs to Taiwan. I dutifully
| calculate that at the current rate of upload, it's going to
| take almost a week in spite of the fact that we have a solid
| OC-3 that should make short work of it. That's not going to
| fly. So ... off to IT I go...
|
| "Hi, Mr. IT, I've got a bandwidth problem getting this
| tapeout to Taiwan. Can you bump my traffic in priority so I
| can get this out?"
|
| Tap ... tap ... tap.
|
| "Sigh. Yes, Mr. Exuberant Youngster, we can solve this. Give
| it an hour."
|
| "Thanks." I troop back up to my desk.
|
| 5 minutes later a global email appears from Mr. IT ...
|
| "Hi, folks. We're starting a system audit sweep of all the
| computers for inappropriate access. Yes, you know what that
| means, all those videos that you shouldn't be watching at
| work ... yeah, stop that, post haste. We should be done 48
| hours from now. Thanks."
|
| A quite remarkable amount of clicking in the cubicle farm
| suddenly begins. And, of course, my bandwidth suddenly jumps
| through the roof.
|
| I ... am ... agog.
|
| I walk back up to Mr. IT: "Erm ... thanks. But, what just ...
| happened? And ... why?"
|
| Mr. IT, with a huge grin replies:
|
| "No problem. You needed bandwidth; so I got you bandwidth. As
| for why? Well, I can go through the work of prioritizing your
| traffic which requires that I log into the external gateway,
| set up rules, get them correct, let you upload, remember the
| reset the rules and not hose the entire company while doing
| so. Or I can get all dipshits watching porn at work to stop
| for a day or two by announcing a system audit. Which do you
| think is easier and less error prone for me?"
|
| Youngster me got an important lesson that day that there are
| often multiple solutions to the same problem.
| janfoeh wrote:
| This made me smile, thank you. And reminded me to dig out
| the Bastard Operator From Hell stories again from
| somewhere...
| trollbridge wrote:
| Meanwhile:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39560440
|
| Entities like PayPal and Stripe are complaining they want _less_
| EU banking regulation.
| generationP wrote:
| If German intel serves personal data to a known fugitive from
| justice working with the GRU, then EU regulation is a lost
| cause. If anything, I want them to know as little as possible.
| tivert wrote:
| > The CEO of the company was Markus Braun, a former KPMG
| consultant from a middle-class family in Vienna. Braun modeled
| his appearance on Steve Jobs, always wearing a black turtleneck
| and wire-frame eyeglasses
|
| Didn't Elizabeth Holmes do that too?
|
| Never trust people who consciously dress like Steve Jobs on days
| other than Halloween.
| _visgean wrote:
| I wear glasses and i wear turtleneck in the winter. I am bit
| trying to emulate Jobs, I just dont want my throat to be
| exposed to wind.
| tivert wrote:
| > I wear glasses and i wear turtleneck in the winter. I am
| bit trying to emulate Jobs, I just dont want my throat to be
| exposed to wind.
|
| Just don't wear a black one and you're fine.
| _visgean wrote:
| i wear a black one. Really nice one from charity shop for 7
| pounds.. but I dont mind the occasional "steve jobs" snark
| kiddico wrote:
| Not unlike the toothbrush mustache, black turtlenecks have been
| ruined for everyone.
| I_am_tiberius wrote:
| For people following the Wirecard story this isn't new.
| generationP wrote:
| That Marsalek works for Russian intel isn't new. Many of the
| details are.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Interesting story - sounds like Wirecard may have been a Russian
| version of the BCCI. For comparison:
|
| https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/11intel.htm
|
| > "The unofficial story of BCCI's links to U.S. intelligence is
| complicated by the inability of investigators to determine
| whether private persons affiliated with U.S. intelligence were
| undertaking actions such as selling U.S. arms to a foreign
| government outside ordinary channels on their own behalf, or
| ostensibly under sanction of a U.S. government agency, policy, or
| operation."
| Log_out_ wrote:
| German (sp/h)ygh society, it's almost like any longterm spywar
| breeds a mafia, they are loyal first to themselves and their
| thiefdoms everywhere.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Everytime crypto gets harangued as a money laundering cesspool, I
| think of HSBC's highest performing branch in Sinaloa and
| Germany's fintech giant payment processor run by a GRU spy. As in
| two money laundering behemoths right out in the regulated open.
| Give me a break.
| dogman144 wrote:
| lol for those downvoting, here are the facts:
|
| - HSBC was fined about $2.5b all in all by US govt in 2010's
| (one of largest ever) for laundering $900m for cartels over
| multiple years. The Sinaloa branch (not NYC, Zurich, Greenwich,
| London... but Sinaloa) was their highest performing branch for
| a long stretch
|
| - Why exactly would a German unicorn payment processors' COO be
| a longterm agent... GRU's infiltration of German finance and
| energy industry for laundering and energy markets access is an
| open secret.
| calibas wrote:
| This is what actual reporting looks like.
|
| Look at most news stories these days. There's some kind of
| conflict, two parties don't agree on something, and they report
| both "sides" of the story. Because the writers don't know what
| really occurred, it's common that a news story will give equal
| weight to lies and truth (or semi-truth and semi-truth).
|
| In the insanity of normal society, this is actually promoted as a
| good thing. News stations pat themselves on the back for being
| "fair and balanced", and use it as proof of being "unbiased".
|
| It's the opposite of unbiased, when there's no bias there are no
| "sides". You can't take both sides in a conflict, each "side"
| being a heavily biased opinion in itself, and combine them
| together to create a lack of bias. That's not how it works, two
| conflicting partial truths don't equal a whole truth, two
| conflicting partial truths just create cognitive dissonance
| (FUD).
|
| Now look at this news story, it's quite different from what I
| described above. It's proper investigative journalism where the
| goal is cutting through opinions and second-hand information to
| find the actual truth. It's a major accomplishment and something
| to be applauded.
|
| In my heavily-biased opinion, it's the job of a free press to
| seek and report the truth, to create new stories like this one,
| not to report "both sides".
|
| And to illustrate when I'm saying, look at what happens to be the
| #1 story on my Google News at this moment:
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/middleeast/gaza-food-truck-de...
|
| CNN doesn't know exactly what happened, there's conflicting
| stories, and all we know for sure is that a bunch of hungry
| Palestinians were just killed while trying to get food. Here's
| what CNN found:
|
| According to Palestine it's Israel's fault.
|
| According to Israel it's Palestine's fault.
|
| Yes, clear as mud. It's the perfect kind of reporting for adding
| to the controversy and acting like there's no clear right &
| wrong, or viable solutions to the conflict. It's how I would do
| things if I wanted to extend the war as long as possible.
| However, I'm biased toward peace and preservation of life, so
| it's quite clear to me what's causing food riots and subsequent
| massacres.
| red_admiral wrote:
| When something newsworthy happens, like many civilian deaths
| around a food truck, people reading the news want two things:
| they want the truth, and they want it now. I agree with you
| that good journalism seeks the truth first of all - but that
| takes time and if everyone else is talking about that truck
| today, your news outlet has to feature that story too somehow.
| Maybe we'll have a proper investigative report on that truck in
| a week, or a month.
|
| I remember that earlier in the war, when some kind of rocket
| struck a hospital in Gaza, Israel and Hamas also blamed each
| other - then President Biden said as far as his intelligence
| goes, it was Hamas and I think that's the consensus now? We
| might never know for sure, but in the immediate aftermath of
| the hit the options for a media outlet were basically "we don't
| know" or "it was definitely the side we don't like". The
| truthful answer until someone's done the investigation is the
| former, but that gets you the kind of article on CNN that
| you're pointing out.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _people reading the news want two things: they want the
| truth, and they want it now._
|
| I profoundly disagree. People want two other, completely
| different things:
|
| 1. People want to be given information to confirm their own
| biases and preconceived notions
|
| 2. People want to be able to not have to actually _do_
| anything or _change_ anything because of any new information.
| rainworld wrote:
| I'll save you the headache: News media does not exist to inform
| you. In the actually existing real world that we live in, news
| media does not exist to inform you.
|
| _But it does inform me sometimes!_
|
| Cost of doing business.
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| Some of that is just that there's a 24 hour news cycle, and the
| event is out there so they have to report that it happened. It
| takes _time_ to untangle what really happened in an event like
| that, and it's not going to happen in a day.
|
| I'm not going to get into the politics of that, but I do wish
| that news orgs would report the necessary context for
| understanding what "so-and-so claims" really means and letting
| people have all the information they need so they can judge how
| many grains of salt are appropriate. A little bit of he-said,
| she-said is necessary in breaking news, but there should be a
| lot of caveats that go along with reporting like that.
| calibas wrote:
| You have a country full of starving people, an active war,
| and trucks full of food guarded by soldiers of the opposing
| force. You also have the UN, a somewhat independent
| organization that's supposed to help resolve the conflict,
| and they're saying Israel is _intentionally_ restricting Gaza
| 's food supply.
|
| Understanding this context, seeing all the threads, and
| there's really not much to untangle. If anything, this was
| entirely predictable. Nobody should be surprised that
| starvation was enough to provoke a violent conflict between
| Palestinians and the IDF.
|
| I believe the news media is here to provide clarity, not add
| to confusion. The problem is that when things are a tangled
| mess, the media has a lot more to report on. Truth is cut and
| dry, but when there's a mystery you can just keep going on
| and on and on... I still remember all the news about OJ
| Simpson, so much to report and so few facts!
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| delusions of grandeur strongly remind me of Paul LeRoux
| https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind/
|
| ... also Kim Dotcom who I met personally before going on a run to
| Asia. He too had cardboard cutouts of himself as a cartoon
| character all over his Munich office of DataProtect. Funny that
| Kim Schmitz managed to settle in NZ and not Russia. He is an
| outlier, probably lacked the RU connection back then.
| crotchfire wrote:
| The book _Kingpin_ about LeRoux is a great read! Fun and geeky.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9319468-kingpin
|
| Especially liked the part where he is asked "so why do you keep
| your piles of cash in Pelican cases"? "Because they float."
| epistasis wrote:
| With Schulz's truly strange behavior in stalling support for
| Ukraine, and involvement in the Wirecard and cum-ex scandals, I
| truly wonder if there might be some kompromat hanging over
| Scholz's head around this.
| pelasaco wrote:
| That's not new (in German) https://www.berliner-
| zeitung.de/wirtschaft-verantwortung/wir...
| Vuizur wrote:
| Scholz does not stall support for Ukraine, Germany has given
| about 10 times as much military aid as France to Ukraine:
| https://www.politico.eu/article/military-aid-ukraine-france-...
|
| Also compared to the US, Germany has given about 60 billion
| total aid (including the EU share + refugee cost) if I
| calculate it correctly, while the US has given 75 billion. So
| it gives much more per GDP.
| 3pm wrote:
| Is there a word that describes a very loosely organized but
| extremely powerful entity, that is kind of a nation state but
| also kind of a mafia and also kind of a business? Can it just be
| summarized as Putin's regime? But then it will function without
| him, maybe even more effectively. And its only ideology is the
| hate toward Western values (and love of the Western toys). What
| you call it?
| dh2022 wrote:
| I can't wait to see what happens in Russia post-Putin. I mean,
| the guy is 71 years old. Maybe he will hang on for another
| 10-15 years. I can't wait to see what happens then. As far as I
| can tell none of his biological offspring is being pushed as
| next leader.
| 3pm wrote:
| How much does he matter you think? After reading the article,
| did you get the impression that all the colorful characters
| will suddenly change their ways after Putin dies? It seems
| the whole thing is very very loosely organized. More Camorra
| than Cosa Nostra. They kinda off like reverse James Bonds,
| but not exactly.
| dh2022 wrote:
| Well, a power struggle would be quite the thing to watch.
| At least for me. Kinda like what happened when Stalin died.
| (My personal forecast excludes return to democracy; it
| includes something similar to what happened after Stalin
| died).
| 3pm wrote:
| Yes, I think the chance to soft-land USSR into a
| democracy was missed by the West in the 90s. I don't see
| how the brainwashed population and their globe trotting
| elite will change their views now. It did not have to be
| this way.
| dh2022 wrote:
| I thought the same way back in 90s. I also thought that a
| western-aligned Russia would have helped counter act some
| of China's ambitions. (I was quite puzzled by my college
| economics professor when he kept saying that increasing
| trade with China will make China more like the West)
| Instead of that, the West more or less nudged Russia in
| China's arms....It did not have to be this way....
| maratc wrote:
| I am sorry to be pessimistic, but once Putin is gone, someone
| else is going to take his place. There won't be much
| difference between Putin and the other guy, and that (small)
| difference may be for the better or it may be for the worse.
|
| Putin is not in that place because he's somehow an extremely
| talented (or extremely lucky) person. Putin is there because
| that's what most of the Russian elite wants. Once he's gone,
| the Russian elite will put there somebody else who will fit
| them the most. It would not be reasonable to expect any
| drastic difference given the unchanging circumstances.
|
| The thought that Putin is holding a whole country hostage to
| his freakish ideas is a very depressing one, but when you
| think of it it's actually an optimistic one because it
| implies that a positive change could be coming. But in my
| view, the reality is even more depressing. And in my view,
| the reality is that he has both the elites' support and the
| popular support.
|
| A good proxy for the Russian situation would be China. They
| have changed the guy a couple of times in the last 30 years
| but the policy stayed mostly the same. The only things that
| can bring a change are either a coup (not likely in Russia)
| or a black horse like Gorbachev.
| mseepgood wrote:
| Why is Germany always so naive when it comes to Russian espionage
| and infiltration?
| Krasnol wrote:
| They are not in the conflict flow anymore. It's been trained
| out of their system for quite some time. It leads to some naive
| assumptions about how the world works.
|
| Even the events around the current conflict seem not to have
| shaken the society, from what I witness. The Green parties
| wishes on the topic of heat pumps or people coming to their
| country whose skin color is not white have more revolutionary
| potential than Russians right around the corner or people
| blowing up their gas pipelines.
|
| They are too busy with themselves and stuff like that is just
| embarrassing. It only serves as filling material for your
| everyday complaining orgy every single morning at work. Stuff a
| healthy German citizen leaves behind them at Feierabend.
| thriftwy wrote:
| What was in it for Russia?
|
| The missing 1.9 billions would be an interesting asset for e.g.
| NK secret services, but for Russia it's a drop in a bucket.
| thriftwy wrote:
| > The anti-revolutionary activities were being orchestrated by
| the FSB's Fifth Service, the Russian organization's foreign
| intelligence arm.
|
| One can only wonder what SBU was doing in the meantime...
| intuitionist wrote:
| The money was not stolen; it never existed in the first place.
|
| The fraud at Wirecard started before Marsalek seems to have
| been recruited as a Russian asset; the GRU probably didn't even
| know it was happening until fairly late in the game. As frauds
| tend to do, it snowballed, until you're setting up a Potemkin
| bank branch in the Philippines to get your auditor off your
| back about the couple billion Euros in cash you claim to have.
|
| Still, I can think of a few reasons why an intelligence service
| might want to be connected to the wealthy COO of a company that
| processes payments for porn websites and offshore casinos...
| 3pm wrote:
| There is no single 'Russia' and certainly not one entity _got_
| the whole 1.9 billion. It looks like a fairly loosely coupled
| ecosystem of shady actors. They are privateers in a war. Not
| unlike Francis Drake. The war that everyone in Russia knows
| they're in.
| generationP wrote:
| Interestingly, the article completely avoids mentioning the
| familial trail:
|
| > Marsalek's grandfather, [Hans
| Marsalek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Mar%C5%A1%C3%A1lek),
| was a member of the Austrian resistance and later a suspected spy
| for the Soviet Union.
|
| And following the link to Hans Marsalek's page:
|
| > He was long suspected of being a Soviet asset. Recently
| uncovered documents indicate that are grounds to believe he was
| responsible for helping the Soviets kidnap at least four people
| and illegally render them to Moscow for torture and
| interrogation.
|
| While I am not surprised that a socialist persecuted under the
| Nazis would join Soviet efforts, this is some useful backstory in
| understanding why Marsalek the younger apparently had no reserves
| in collaborating with the KGB.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-03-01 23:01 UTC)