June 24, 2025 • 43 mins
On the ground in Austria and Germany, Sam digs deep into Marsalek’s past. His odd habits. His strange house. The hypnotic effect he had on former colleagues. And how he is remembered by childhood friends.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Previously on Hot Money Very Fast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Actually started then talking about his experience in Syria facilitated
by the boys, just after the recapture of the city
of Panira from Isis.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
When he said with the boys, what did you.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Basically said with the Russians?
Speaker 4 (00:28):
So is it that one? It's that one on the left,
those two great big gates there, it's fucking massive.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
So we stood outside Prince Cageddonklasa. Well, the house on
Prince Cogeddon Tlaca belongs to the Master elect. It's tall,
it's snowing slowly through trees without leaves. It's a very
high fence, which is like a wrought iron fence that's
thickly covered with ivy. In February, my producer Peggy and
(01:02):
I went to Yan Marslek's former residence in Munich, a
place he'd kept almost entirely secret. It's where he ran
his shadow life, his extra curricular world outside of Wirekat
sixty one Prince Rickenstrasse. Marcelek rented it for six hundred
and eighty thousand euros a year. Here he was occupying
(01:23):
one of the grandest residential buildings in Munich, which is
the wealthiest city in Germany and therefore possibly one of
the wealthiest cities in all of Europe. From the moment
I first became drawn into Yan masslex world, there's been
this huge paradox, and coming back to Munich, I'm hit
(01:45):
by it full force. We're on a street he's opposite
the Russian consulate, and down the road to various embassies
and other grand residences.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And I suppose, in so far as you would.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Assume that one of the prime objectives of most people
working in intelligence's discretion and to remain hidden, then one
wonders why he chose here a villa opposite the Russian consulate,
giving Paul those Novelchok documents, boasting about your relationships with
Russian mercenaries. How can you function as a spy, a
(02:20):
good spy if you're compelled to drop hints about being
one all the time.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
It's a kind of almost like a Sharon Stone moment
from Basic Instinct. You know the plot of Basic Instinct
where she she murders her husband. But that's also the
plot of the book she's written, so it couldn't possibly
be true. One of my favorite books about espionage is
(02:49):
John Lecare's The Honorable Schoolboy six aka the Circus pick
up clues about Russian master spy Krla by looking back
in time. Through looking more closely at how they were
misled at the wreckage, the Circus find the traces of something,
a thread on which to pull. Pakai calls it taking
(03:12):
back bearings, and it feels to me like we need
to do something similar. So far, I've heard about three
radically different yan marslects, the corporate high flier, the fraudster,
and now the Russian agent. And yet even with that,
I have very little sense of who yan Marcelek really
(03:35):
is behind these identities, what makes up the substance of
his character, what motivates him. Motive, I think, is the
holy grail in this story, not only for what it
reveals about one man psychologically, but also what it might
help us glimpse about a whole worldview and those who
(03:55):
pursue it. And so in this episode, I track down
people who knew Marslek well, worked with him, closely, grew
up with him in his hometown, all to gather clues.
My name is Sam Jones from the Financial Times and
Pushkin Industries. This is Hot Money Season three, Agent of
(04:19):
Chaos episode four, Back Bearings. Jan Marcelek vanished five years
ago after Warkard was exposed as a massive fraud. He
hasn't been seen in public since, at least not under
(04:41):
his real name. At first, everyone thought Marcelek had gone
to the Philippines. He told colleagues he was going to
find Warcard's missing billions. But then the trail in Manila
went cold. People wondered whether he'd absconded to China. Rumours
world about his connections to Germany's intelligence services, to the Austrians,
(05:04):
to Israel. Perhaps he'd been taken into protective custody. But
these were all trails that Marcelek himself had quite deliberately
left behind. In reality, he'd taken a car over the
Alps to a village outside Vienna. Travel records show he'd
hopped on a plane to Minsk and from there had
(05:26):
gone on to Moscow. But even the people close to
him didn't know where he ended up. They were left
to figure things out for themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Just talk us through.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
When you then go into Prince against Vassa, what was
it like inside?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And what were you what was going through your head?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I was scared like toll I haven't told my wife.
I've told other people that I'm going there where I am.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
It's two months after jan Marcelek's disappearance, and this man
we're going to call him mister Sampt, has gained access
to his house.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I had a phone in my socks and did not
know what to expect.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Mister Sampt has asked that we don't reveal his real
name as a condition of speaking with us, for professional reasons.
What I can tell you is that he's a high
level PR consultant hired by companies when they're in crisis.
Sumpt in German means velvet. It's the alias he has
chosen for himself. That day, Sumpt is with an ex
(06:32):
business partner of marcele X who knew about this place,
who was in fact a regular visitor. They snuck into
the house because well, they both have questions, I mean, who.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Doesn't so and we walked around and unbelievable. You walk
around and you see a parallel world. Yeah, this room
is sound proof. This room is searched every other week
by a specialist for microphones and surveillance stuff. You walk
(07:09):
around and wow, And then you see his bedroom, which
was a black and white painted room like a zebra,
with a mattress on the floor and black and white
bed sheets, not like a cozy bedroom.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
The house is almost entirely empty, which is strange because
when mars Leac fled all he had with him were
two pieces of luggage. Someone must have cleared the house
out afterwards. There were just a few striking artifacts left behind.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I was impressed by his medical cabinet. It was a
normal door, looked in and out. Behind the door was
forty centimeters deep in shelves full of medical stuff. And
because we're were in COVID at that time, everything to
fight a virus was there. This is a sedative, is virus,
(08:11):
this is the flu, and one was for diabetes.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
It sounds to me like the private stash of someone
who never wanted to depend on public health care services,
or perhaps someone who never wanted to have to take
out a prescription in his own name. There are bottles
and bottles of Russian medicines. Sam's heart is still racing
and he's scared for a reason. As he looks out
(08:37):
the window from the room he was told was marce
Lex's office. There directly opposite the house is the Russian
Consulate and he's thinking, Jesus, could there even be a
tunnel between these buildings? Apart from Killian Kleinschmidt, who you
(08:57):
heard from in the last episode, Sampt is the only
person I've met who's been inside the Prince ri again
Shtasa house. He knew yan Marslek for about eighteen months,
but he knew him very well, or at least he
knew one side of him, and he knew him under pressure.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I'm hired sometimes awareness something smelly going on in how
to not avoid, but how to go through with it
and don't have too much damage.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Wakaard hired Sampt in twenty nineteen when my FT colleagues
Dan and Paul were beginning to reveal to the world
that the company was a fraud. Within days of joining,
Samt began working closely with Yan Marcelek. Sam prides himself
on his ability to read people, to watch them, and
to a certain extent, to be immune to their charms.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Can you describe him for us?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I noticed his friendliness do you want to drink something?
And then said yeah, I'll grab a cop Oh no,
please allow me to give you a coke and very formal,
polite German battla Geber so please you.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, almost elaborate with your kind indulgence.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
You allow me to hand you a coke. You know
those headwaiters and Austrian restaurants, Yeah, oberber So, it to
me was the behavior of a head waiter.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
When I think of an Austrian Oberkellner, I have a
specific thing in mind. Formal, sometimes stiffly so, maybe even
outwardly obsequious, but people totally in control of their own worlds.
In a Viennese cafe house, you are the guest of
the head waiter. Sam soon found himself getting close to Marcelek.
(11:00):
He noticed his quirks. Marcelec ate chocolate constantly. He kept
a big box of lint carret little individually wrapped chocolate
squares in his office. The bin was always full of rappers,
and Sampt he would often bring him chocolate or sweets
on those visits. Sampt clocks the curious collection of objects
(11:22):
in marce Le's office, like a life size Donald Trump
cardboard cutout. For example, one day he asked another senior
wirecard executive.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Do you know about this life size Trump figure in
the office and in Marshal X Marshal's office and his
altar of Russian officers keps like Ushanka kind of yeah, yeah,
those heads.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
The executive replies, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And no, I've never been in this office. Actually.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
He also noticed that while so much of mars le
X world at work seemed neat precise, there was also
chaos kind of hidden away.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
He put all the dirty cappuccino and all the dirty china.
He put it in the cupboard in his conference.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Room, not just a few cups, weeks and weeks and
weeks worth.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Of cups because he didn't want to see it.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
He didn't want to see the mess. Yes, and it
was summer, so that was a biotope.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
After a while, and.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
The cleaning woman found it by accident because they were
missing so much china, and he just put it messy
like in this cupboard and in the back it was
already growing.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
There were also times when Samt would catch glimpses of
Marcelet's personal life, like one night when it was quite
late and Marcelek had kept him waiting for a long time,
so long that Samt had had time to go out
to a nearby toy shop and buy him a present,
a Lego batmobile.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I like to play build Lego who does not. And
so I bought it and gave it to him as
a gift and said, here, that reminds me of you.
And he looked out Batman as said no, the.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Joker, Marcelet brushes off the gibe and eagerly opens the box.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
We started building, and during that building he received like
fifteen ten to fifteen phone calls from his girlfriend and
his father who were in town and who were waiting
for him for dinner, but he didn't want to go.
He was sitting there with me. We were talking business
and he was building this batmobiles and then he said, yeah,
(13:48):
I'll come later and I'll join you later. And we
were sitting there. I was sitting on one end of
the conference tail, he was in on the other, and
we were rolling the car. But he clearly didn't didn't
want to go and spend. He clearly didn't want to go,
and I had the feeling that it was a difficult relationship.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And then there was the money.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I remember one time we went into a restaurant here
in Munich and I had a capacco real cauliflower, two
or three coke zero, and so my bill was less
than fifty euros, probably the whole bill was seven hundred something.
(14:30):
Marsade started with Cavia. He had all the classic oyster
whatever beefsticked Fiorentina, and this bottle of sparkling wine, and
it was a seven hundred and twenty euro bill and
he gave nine hundred. He tried to be humble, or
to give the picture of being a humble person devoted
(14:52):
to his job. On the other hand, paying everything cash
and living a life that is in the high one
percent of Munich. Where does the money come from? That
was something that I always was questioning.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Myself, possibly thought Sampt. The early days of Wakad had
seen the company pay its executives huge bonuses before it listed.
But even that didn't quite account for Marclec's apparent wealth,
because it wasn't just flashy dinners.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
He was invested with seven million into Telegram.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
The messaging app founded in Russia. Marcelek was an early shareholder.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But when you only make a million before tex at wirecard,
you have to work fifteen years and eat ravioli from
cans and live in a very reduced lifestyle to save
up the money to invest like that in one single
(15:55):
direct investment.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
And of course samt didn't even know at this point
about the palatial property on Prince Rigenstrasser that he found
out two months later after warecard blew up. Even though
they would often meet at a restaurant very close by, I.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Could have beaten myself. There's Kifa at a restaurant he
in Munich, and we met very often at the Kiefer restaurant,
and his secret office was like five hundred meters or
less than five hundred meters down the road.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
After the day he'd poked around the villa, sumptualizes that really,
whatever he thought he confidently knew about Yan Marsilek is
barely anything substantial at all, and that in the eighteen
months they worked together, Marcelek's entire persona at Wakard was
effectively a lie. I needed to talk to someone who'd
known him for longer than SAMD. That's coming up after
(16:53):
the break. Martin Ostelo first met Jan Marcelek when he
joined warkat almost sixteen years ago.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
Young guy at the time. He was wearing a tea
shirt and jeans, had an impressive charisma about him. But
you never would have thought that this guy would be
the manageable company very quickly at the time.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Back then, in two thousand and five, Marcelek was just
twenty five. He hadn't been to university, he hadn't even
finished school. After joining the company five years earlier in
two thousand, he'd been quickly promoted, and by the time
Martin arrived at Warkat Marcelek was head of it.
Speaker 6 (17:42):
Rhetorically, I already realized at that stage that he was very,
very good. He was like a hoover. He could take
information extremely quickly and formulate a summary, almost in a
fashion where you would lick your lips. Well, you'd love
(18:03):
to have that ability to quickly take something on board
and be able to express it in a form that seemed,
on the one hand, smart but still very very understandable
for a broad audience.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Martin says that Yan worked his way up the company
by bringing order and structure to what was otherwise a chaotic,
fast growing startup.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
If you were the type of guy or girl to
say there's no structure of this, I can't do this,
you were out of the door very very quickly. If
you went in and said I can't do this yet,
how do I do it? Take ownership and do it yourself.
Those people exceled at wire card in the early days.
That's why probably Jan Maselek had an easy to climb
(18:47):
ladder because he was a doer.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
And one thing he was particularly good at was charming people.
Sometimes it almost seemed like he was setting himself a
challenge to win someone to in side by doing something
like deliberately turning up late.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
We had CEOs of very important companies and he would
just come twenty minutes late and still charm this individual
that they seemed like the best friends afterwards, where you
would think that would be inexcusable, but Ian had the
ability to turn things around. I think there really there
are traits that I have had strong envy for, but
(19:27):
I envied Ian so much because it seemed so damn
simple for him. He really mastered giving you the feeling
that you're important, despite the fact that you could figure
out over many, many years that it was a routine.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
With his people skills, Jan was a good manager. He
became Martin's boss, and as you can hear, Martin really
liked him.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
Iyan had a broad spectrum of friendly to formally friendly.
So when, for example, when you went to young and
said do you have a minute, do you have a second.
He would always say for you always.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Which wasn't to say he didn't have edges.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I did have the feeling that he liked people or
didn't like people. In occasions when people got on his
bad side or showed him that they didn't like him,
he could be extremely ruthless is the only word I find.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Over time, Martin noticed that to get on with him
you needed, ultimately not to take things too seriously. Marcelet
liked to test people to see if they could hold
their own against him.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
He did say things to shock and provoke people here
and there. He had a Vina Shmid sort of the
Vienna joking, a playfulness, slayfulness, so he could get away
with murderers saying certain things. And you also have to
understand that he was in a circle of management where
(21:10):
making politically incorrect jokes was in fashion. I think Jan
he'd enjoy walking on a ledge and some people falling down.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
So by the early twenty tens, Jan Masselek is a
hugely successful young corporate executive. He's basically the man running
this fast growing German company which is on its way
to a main market listing. He's a bit of a
Maverick and prefers action over rules. But whatever is striking
(21:47):
or unusual about Yan, it tends to get masked by
the fact that Moicade is also an unusual company. It
primarily processed payments for high risk industries. The business's other
payment processes in companies and banks were hesitant to get
wrapped up in like gaming, gambling and pawn although Walcatt
(22:07):
had a different way of describing that.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
A dult content or emotional content as we would call it.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And over the coming years, Wakat's appetite for risk also
took it to countries where the rules of business were
more ambiguous.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
I had heard before that he had several trips to Russia.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
When would that have been.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
That was four or five years maybe three, three to
five years before Wirecard Gillets, so.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Sort of twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, fifteen sixteen, a round.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
A bit later, yeah, yeah, fifteen sixteen. Yeah. But of
course we did build up Wirecard Russia in that time
as well, so it wasn't so surprising.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Just weeks before Wirecard collapsed, something surprising did happen, and
it chilled Martin Marcelet wanted to invest money in a
new company that was issuing credit cards. He needed the
board's approval. Martin and another colleague had run the numbers
on this company and they knew this investment was a
(23:19):
bad idea. Right ahead of the crucial board meeting, they
told marcelect that explicitly they gave him the figures on
the returns wirecard could expect. Martin remembers specifically what he said, long.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
Term, the card project over the next decade, if it
runs a decade, then it would potentially cover one point
to five million.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Yan took it all on board. There's no way he
didn't know the numbers.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Martin says, Jan was very.
Speaker 6 (23:51):
Very quick in understanding, and an hour later we are
sitting in the meeting and he simply ignored what we said.
He said, the card project alone in the first year
will covered the one point five.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Million, with you in the room, with us in the
video conference.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
So he just ignored what we had discussed.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
It's a very curious kind of game.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
You know, you're watching him do this, and obviously it's clear,
based on everything you understand about him until now, that
he you know, is not stupid. He didn't mishear you.
He didn't, you know, didn't lose the facts.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
We were flabbergasted, We were speechless. It had never happened
like that. I mean, we were all important people in
the company. It was like a puns in the face.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
What really comes across, as Martin recounts, this is just
how effortlessly and easily Marcelect liede how confidently. It's like
he knew he had Martin and his colleague under his thumb,
and they wouldn't raise an objection. And I think that's
what made it so shocking for Martin, because it obviously
raised the question what else had Marcelet lied so bloodlessly about. Today,
(25:08):
I think Martin is actually quite amused by everything that
has happened. He tells me that part of the reason
he decided to talk to me is that it's a
kind of coping mechanism, which I think hints at how
deeply the whole experience has affected him. The collapse of
Wirecard and the revelations that Marcelect was a spy. They
(25:28):
don't anger him, they sadden him.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
I think the biggest tragedy of young marcellek is he
probably could have earned millions gazillions with his charm and
his wit and his business of humen and his skills
that he didn't need to be what he turned out
to be. That is really something that most people who
(25:53):
work at Wargard or witnessed him. When discussing it afterwards,
we all come to that point.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
When marcell x fraud at Wakaard was discovered, the company's
stock went to zero and Martin's life savings were basically
wiped out. For me, the remarkable thing is that despite that,
Martin evidently still holds quite a lot of affection for
his former boss.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
I often asked myself, now did I know the true
jan at all? And how much of it was an act?
How much was a genius, how much was in between?
How much was learned, how much was instinctive? All these
questions I really can't answer. I also asked myself when
(26:41):
young wakes up in the morning, what he thinks now
of all the contexts of all the employees. Was that
all just a lie? At what stage was a lie?
What was the turning point?
Speaker 4 (26:53):
If it was possible to wave a magic wands or whatever?
Could you imagine going for a drink with him or
dinner with him?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Now?
Speaker 6 (26:59):
And Oh yeah, actually I think I would love to
do that. Actually, I have thought about getting into Moscow
and seeing if I could organize it. I was thinking
one could try that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Why haven't you?
Speaker 6 (27:16):
I mean, honest truce is, would you have the balls
to actually go to Moscow? And I feel that, you know,
endangering yourself and your family that probably if I had
a guarantee that I would not be touched. I'd love
to get his side on this.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Martin says he feels certain there must have been a
point where something in marce Lex's life went quite wrong
to set him on the path he took, but when
he thinks back, he really can't say exactly when that
might have been. Martin realizes that Marcelet could talk, he
could charm, he could hold court, he could make you
feel like you were his clothes friend, but actually he
(28:02):
almost never revealed anything about his life directly at all.
What he did at home or where he had come from.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
His whole youth is a complete blank. He never spoke
of that, nor did he speak of Vienna in his youth,
which is quite remarkable, because I mean, I would have
felt like I'd had a lot of personal talks with him,
But only later did I realize he said a lot,
(28:34):
but he didn't really give an insight of his past
at all.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
A few months ago, I traveled to a small Austrian
town called Kloster Neuberg. It's just outside Vienna Cluster. Neuberg
is dominated by a huge monastery on a hill at
its center. It's home to about twenty eight thousand people,
and it's the place where Yan Marcelect grew up. In
(29:09):
the town hall cafe, I meet up with four people
who knew Yan as a child. Rudolf Koch rustles up
some Vellingta black coffees. He used to be the head
master of the local secondary school, Marcelex School, and he's
brought along another teacher, Bruno, and two of marcele X's classmates,
(29:30):
Verena and Philip. We all sit down around the table together.
I hope they might be able to tell me something
about Yan Marcelect before Wakard, about the experiences that formed
him as an adult. This is the first time that Philip,
Rudolph and Bruno have spoken to the press about Marcelek.
When Wakard went down and Marcelek went on the run,
(29:53):
it was a shock.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Top ten white collar crime of y.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
And financier from Lubushop Vad and me and as.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
As Philip runs down the list of Jan's exploits, he
says it sounds like a bad James.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Bond plot, essentially James Bond Blood.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Rudolph shows me and my producer Peggy and old school yearbook.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Oh wow, lots more hair.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Yeah. In the picture, Yana is in the front row,
crouched down, almost ready to spring up again. He's looking
directly at the camera, arm resting on one knee, fingers
laced together. There's maybe twenty other students in the class.
They all look like classic teenagers, awkward in their own bodies. Yan,
(30:45):
though he looks very at ease. It would, of course
be totally stupid to expect to see signs of a criminal,
treasonous future in an old school photo. But this, this
isn't exactly what I expected either, I learned. Yan actually
began his schooling at a less in Vienna, a French
private school, before moving back to the local school in
(31:07):
Klosterneuburg when he was twelve, and because of his time
at the Lise, Yan was fluent in French. Philip, his
former classmate, remembers a time when their French class was
being taught by a supply teacher, a sub and Jan
just stood up and said he was leaving. The teacher was,
of course totally taken aback, but when they tried to
(31:29):
put him in his place, Yan answered with a five
minute monologue in flawless.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
French and.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Totally baffled.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Yan must have gone to the place he always went
whenever he could skip a lesson. In fact, where he
went even in the minutes between lessons, to the library.
And that's where he got to know Bruno.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
I mena active and said I'm going to skip Nazi mid.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Bruno taught history, German and philosophy, and he also looked
after the school library. Soon after Yan joined the school,
the head of it told Bruno that Marcelek was his
star pupil and suggested he could help with the new
computer system the library had got. So Jan became Bruno's helper.
Bruno says that it couldn't have run smoothly without him.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
On Jan mats l.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
In fact, when everyone here thinks of Jan back then,
they picture him sat in front of the computer in
the library. He was obsessed with it and with learning
about this new thing called the internet. Jan was certainly
different from other fifteen year olds who were more likely
to be skateboarding or playing football outside.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
He had the imkiful as eston Avaksen and the aston fineering.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Philip says, it was like they were all still children
and was somehow not. He seemed more like a fully
grown adult already. But you haven't, Na says he was
maybe aloof but definitely not arrogant blink of.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
In cambem I need to f.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Yet other kids admired him, and the teachers well, the thing,
Philip remembers them saying, is be more like Yan.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
What is his name? So?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
I wonder if his teachers knew about his strategy to
avoid washing his socks.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
Well the Abbots said for this washing to Soten.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Samoning.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Philip says that one day Yan announced he had done
a cost benefit analysis and he would never wash a
pair of socks again. Calculating the value of his labor
and time in washing, drying, and folding the sock, he
decided it was cheaper just to take out a subscription
and have new pairs constantly delivered. It sounds almost like
Yan enjoyed being unconventional in making decisions and crucially for me,
(34:12):
telling people about those decisions that seemed to expose or
undermine the sense of what others thought of as being normal.
If Yan liked computers and enjoyed being a typical he
wasn't a loner, though, says Verena. Far from it. He
had a wide group of friends and she was part
of it. And yet she also remembers that Yan never
(34:35):
socialized outside of school. He never took friends home. He
had a very private side to his life.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
His actor had on z prevad umfertin is thus bobbedcap
mitk Norman or a Mitklasen as I saw.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Verena uses this German word schreg to describe him, which
you might say means a skew set at a different
angle to the rest of the world. Jan was a
straight a student, but in his last year, two weeks
before he was due to sit his final high school exams,
he received a job offer from a tech company in Vienna.
(35:12):
He accepted and he told his schoolmates he was leaving immediately.
He wasn't going to bother with the exams androns.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And again he's a jam pistols.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Everyone thinks he's daft leaving at the eleventh hour. You've
got to have a lot of self belief or maybe
self delusion to do something like that aged seventeen. Think
back to how important exam results seem to you at
that age. I can remember believing my whole future depended
on them. Rudolph jumps in to offer an explanation.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
SI.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
He says that the job offer was very, very lucrative.
But all four of them also suggest another possible reason
why Yan so keen to leave Kloster Neuberg. I asked
about Yan's family. He has a younger sister and a brother,
both of whom seem to lead perfectly ordinary lives. No
(36:13):
one really remembers anything about his father either way. The
father had left the family by the time Yann was
going to the local school, but everyone remembers his.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Mothershists and mutovs kim ferusch.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
Rudolph, the head master, describes Marcelek's mother as combative, but
it's obvious from his body language and the way he
raises his eyebrows as he carefully pronounces the word that
he wants me to know it's a bit of a euphemism.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
As a from marge.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Verreina agrees with Rudolph's assessment. She now works for the
town council and she knows from Marcelek as a conspicuous woman.
Doraina says Yan's mother used to be regularly upset about
one thing or another. She campaigned against a five G
mask being put up in Ploster Neuberg and against a
development that would have threatened a nature reserve. She says
(37:09):
she's very left wing. Everyone thinks Yan had a hard
time with his mother, that it was a difficult relationship,
to the point where Yan he did whatever he could
to get away from home. I got in touch with
Anne's mother, and to my surprise, she replied, I got
(37:31):
an email from her. She said she has quote no
interest in giving us an interview because she has neither
the desire, nerves, or time to wreak over quote an
extremely unpleasant period of my life. She has asked that
we don't reveal her name here. She said it's unfair
to label her as combative and said it's a shame
(37:53):
for her campaigning efforts in town to get dismissed as
left wing and disruptive. She did say that her relationship
with her son quote changed massively the year before he
left home. She says it broke down because she quote
didn't let him get away with everything and quote didn't
let him wrap me around his little finger. She tried
(38:16):
to involve a psychologist to mediate between them. It didn't work. Yan,
she implies, had his teachers charmed, but she was resistant.
Since then, she says, she's only tried to make contact
with her son once in twenty five years. The emails
she sent me had a whole load of attachments, eighteen
(38:38):
documents concerning all kinds of things to do with Yan.
Some are press releases from as far back as two thousand,
and they make me think that despite their estrangement, she
has been tracking her son's career. She's read, it would
seem almost all of the books and materials that have
been published about the Warequad fraud. A lot of the
attachments she's sent me, though, are all about the Austrian
(39:01):
Russian Friendship Society, and she urges me to look more
into it. It's the organization in Vienna that Wakaard sponsored.
From marcell X's mother's response and from what we've heard
from others, it's clear that she and her son had
a deeply troubled and painful relationship whatever happened when he
(39:24):
left home, Verena says seemed significant because when she next
saw Yan after the exams, he appeared to be a
changed person. It was at a reunion after everyone else
had graduated. They were around nineteen years old. She says
he boasted that he now knew how the world worked,
(39:46):
that money could buy him whatever he wanted, even sex,
Even he implied sex with her. Incredulous, she told him
he was stupid. When Verena told this story, every one
around the table seemed shocked. It sounded so unlike the
Yan they knew, like he'd somehow come off the rails
(40:07):
a bit.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Before everyone gets up to leave to pick up their
children from nursery to go back to work, Philip tells
me why he agreed to speak with us.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Yeah, Pela, he or pilatives and for whom just doesn't sure.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
He says he's speaking with us because he wants people
to understand that Yan, though he had a difficult childhood,
ended up where he did because he was vulnerable. He
wasn't destined to become a fugitive, and it's deeply sad
that he did. I've always believed that people are much
more malleable things than we realize. Capable of extremes. We
(40:59):
have a tendency to see those who end up at
the fringes are somehow radically different to us broken evil.
The reality, though, is that with the right pressures, the
right challenges, the right circumstances, or all the wrong ones,
people can be walked into the strangest shapes and situations.
(41:22):
When you want to recruit someone as a spy, if
you're good at it, you understand something of that. You
look for the parts of a person's life, their personality,
their needs that you can work with, bend, change, use
their history. But not everyone with a difficult childhood becomes
(41:45):
a spy. So how did Yan Marcelett get drawn into it?
Why did he end up working with the Russians? And
what did he actually do coming up on hot money?
Speaker 7 (42:01):
If Moscow decides and it is always Moscow who decides,
if Moscow decided that this person can be and should
be recruited, then they work out ways of how to
recruit disperson.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
This is a dangerous situation because those spies tend to
be the better ones, better than the guys who do
it solely for money. Hot Money is a production of
the financial times and pushkin Industries. It was written and
reported by me Sam Jones. The senior producer and co
(42:37):
writer is Peggy Sutton. Our producer is Izzy Carter. Our
researcher is Marine Saint. Our show is edited by Karen Shakerci,
fact checking by Kira Levine, Sound design and mastering by
Jake Gorsky and Marcelo de Olivia, with additional sound design
by Izzy Carter. Original music from Matthias Boss and John
(43:00):
Evans of Stellwagon Symphonet. Our show art is by Sean Carney.
Our executive producers are Cheryl Brumley, Amy Gaines McQuaid and
Matthew Garahan. Additional editing by Paul Murphy. Special thanks to
Ruler Calaffe, Dan McCrumb, Laura Clark, Alistair Mackie, Manuela Saragosa,
(43:22):
Nigel Hanson, Vicki Merrick, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Jake Flanagan,
Jacob Goldstein, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cohne.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I'm Sam Jones.
Previously on Hot Money Very Fast.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Actually started then talking about his experience in Syria facilitated
by the boys, just after the recapture of the city
of Panira from Isis.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
When he said with the boys, what did you.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Basically said with the Russians?
Speaker 4 (00:28):
So is it that one? It's that one on the left,
those two great big gates there, it's fucking massive.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
So we stood outside Prince Cageddonklasa. Well, the house on
Prince Cogeddon Tlaca belongs to the Master elect. It's tall,
it's snowing slowly through trees without leaves. It's a very
high fence, which is like a wrought iron fence that's
thickly covered with ivy. In February, my producer Peggy and
(01:02):
I went to Yan Marslek's former residence in Munich, a
place he'd kept almost entirely secret. It's where he ran
his shadow life, his extra curricular world outside of Wirekat
sixty one Prince Rickenstrasse. Marcelek rented it for six hundred
and eighty thousand euros a year. Here he was occupying
(01:23):
one of the grandest residential buildings in Munich, which is
the wealthiest city in Germany and therefore possibly one of
the wealthiest cities in all of Europe. From the moment
I first became drawn into Yan masslex world, there's been
this huge paradox, and coming back to Munich, I'm hit
(01:45):
by it full force. We're on a street he's opposite
the Russian consulate, and down the road to various embassies
and other grand residences.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
And I suppose, in so far as you would.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Assume that one of the prime objectives of most people
working in intelligence's discretion and to remain hidden, then one
wonders why he chose here a villa opposite the Russian consulate,
giving Paul those Novelchok documents, boasting about your relationships with
Russian mercenaries. How can you function as a spy, a
(02:20):
good spy if you're compelled to drop hints about being
one all the time.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
It's a kind of almost like a Sharon Stone moment
from Basic Instinct. You know the plot of Basic Instinct
where she she murders her husband. But that's also the
plot of the book she's written, so it couldn't possibly
be true. One of my favorite books about espionage is
(02:49):
John Lecare's The Honorable Schoolboy six aka the Circus pick
up clues about Russian master spy Krla by looking back
in time. Through looking more closely at how they were
misled at the wreckage, the Circus find the traces of something,
a thread on which to pull. Pakai calls it taking
(03:12):
back bearings, and it feels to me like we need
to do something similar. So far, I've heard about three
radically different yan marslects, the corporate high flier, the fraudster,
and now the Russian agent. And yet even with that,
I have very little sense of who yan Marcelek really
(03:35):
is behind these identities, what makes up the substance of
his character, what motivates him. Motive, I think, is the
holy grail in this story, not only for what it
reveals about one man psychologically, but also what it might
help us glimpse about a whole worldview and those who
(03:55):
pursue it. And so in this episode, I track down
people who knew Marslek well, worked with him, closely, grew
up with him in his hometown, all to gather clues.
My name is Sam Jones from the Financial Times and
Pushkin Industries. This is Hot Money Season three, Agent of
(04:19):
Chaos episode four, Back Bearings. Jan Marcelek vanished five years
ago after Warkard was exposed as a massive fraud. He
hasn't been seen in public since, at least not under
(04:41):
his real name. At first, everyone thought Marcelek had gone
to the Philippines. He told colleagues he was going to
find Warcard's missing billions. But then the trail in Manila
went cold. People wondered whether he'd absconded to China. Rumours
world about his connections to Germany's intelligence services, to the Austrians,
(05:04):
to Israel. Perhaps he'd been taken into protective custody. But
these were all trails that Marcelek himself had quite deliberately
left behind. In reality, he'd taken a car over the
Alps to a village outside Vienna. Travel records show he'd
hopped on a plane to Minsk and from there had
(05:26):
gone on to Moscow. But even the people close to
him didn't know where he ended up. They were left
to figure things out for themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Just talk us through.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
When you then go into Prince against Vassa, what was
it like inside?
Speaker 1 (05:44):
And what were you what was going through your head?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I was scared like toll I haven't told my wife.
I've told other people that I'm going there where I am.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
It's two months after jan Marcelek's disappearance, and this man
we're going to call him mister Sampt, has gained access
to his house.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I had a phone in my socks and did not
know what to expect.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Mister Sampt has asked that we don't reveal his real
name as a condition of speaking with us, for professional reasons.
What I can tell you is that he's a high
level PR consultant hired by companies when they're in crisis.
Sumpt in German means velvet. It's the alias he has
chosen for himself. That day, Sumpt is with an ex
(06:32):
business partner of marcele X who knew about this place,
who was in fact a regular visitor. They snuck into
the house because well, they both have questions, I mean, who.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Doesn't so and we walked around and unbelievable. You walk
around and you see a parallel world. Yeah, this room
is sound proof. This room is searched every other week
by a specialist for microphones and surveillance stuff. You walk
(07:09):
around and wow, And then you see his bedroom, which
was a black and white painted room like a zebra,
with a mattress on the floor and black and white
bed sheets, not like a cozy bedroom.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
The house is almost entirely empty, which is strange because
when mars Leac fled all he had with him were
two pieces of luggage. Someone must have cleared the house
out afterwards. There were just a few striking artifacts left behind.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
I was impressed by his medical cabinet. It was a
normal door, looked in and out. Behind the door was
forty centimeters deep in shelves full of medical stuff. And
because we're were in COVID at that time, everything to
fight a virus was there. This is a sedative, is virus,
(08:11):
this is the flu, and one was for diabetes.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
It sounds to me like the private stash of someone
who never wanted to depend on public health care services,
or perhaps someone who never wanted to have to take
out a prescription in his own name. There are bottles
and bottles of Russian medicines. Sam's heart is still racing
and he's scared for a reason. As he looks out
(08:37):
the window from the room he was told was marce
Lex's office. There directly opposite the house is the Russian
Consulate and he's thinking, Jesus, could there even be a
tunnel between these buildings? Apart from Killian Kleinschmidt, who you
(08:57):
heard from in the last episode, Sampt is the only
person I've met who's been inside the Prince ri again
Shtasa house. He knew yan Marslek for about eighteen months,
but he knew him very well, or at least he
knew one side of him, and he knew him under pressure.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I'm hired sometimes awareness something smelly going on in how
to not avoid, but how to go through with it
and don't have too much damage.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Wakaard hired Sampt in twenty nineteen when my FT colleagues
Dan and Paul were beginning to reveal to the world
that the company was a fraud. Within days of joining,
Samt began working closely with Yan Marcelek. Sam prides himself
on his ability to read people, to watch them, and
to a certain extent, to be immune to their charms.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Can you describe him for us?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I noticed his friendliness do you want to drink something?
And then said yeah, I'll grab a cop Oh no,
please allow me to give you a coke and very formal,
polite German battla Geber so please you.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, almost elaborate with your kind indulgence.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
You allow me to hand you a coke. You know
those headwaiters and Austrian restaurants, Yeah, oberber So, it to
me was the behavior of a head waiter.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
When I think of an Austrian Oberkellner, I have a
specific thing in mind. Formal, sometimes stiffly so, maybe even
outwardly obsequious, but people totally in control of their own worlds.
In a Viennese cafe house, you are the guest of
the head waiter. Sam soon found himself getting close to Marcelek.
(11:00):
He noticed his quirks. Marcelec ate chocolate constantly. He kept
a big box of lint carret little individually wrapped chocolate
squares in his office. The bin was always full of rappers,
and Sampt he would often bring him chocolate or sweets
on those visits. Sampt clocks the curious collection of objects
(11:22):
in marce Le's office, like a life size Donald Trump
cardboard cutout. For example, one day he asked another senior
wirecard executive.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Do you know about this life size Trump figure in
the office and in Marshal X Marshal's office and his
altar of Russian officers keps like Ushanka kind of yeah, yeah,
those heads.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
The executive replies, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
And no, I've never been in this office. Actually.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
He also noticed that while so much of mars le
X world at work seemed neat precise, there was also
chaos kind of hidden away.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
He put all the dirty cappuccino and all the dirty china.
He put it in the cupboard in his conference.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Room, not just a few cups, weeks and weeks and
weeks worth.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Of cups because he didn't want to see it.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
He didn't want to see the mess. Yes, and it
was summer, so that was a biotope.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
After a while, and.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
The cleaning woman found it by accident because they were
missing so much china, and he just put it messy
like in this cupboard and in the back it was
already growing.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
There were also times when Samt would catch glimpses of
Marcelet's personal life, like one night when it was quite
late and Marcelek had kept him waiting for a long time,
so long that Samt had had time to go out
to a nearby toy shop and buy him a present,
a Lego batmobile.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
I like to play build Lego who does not. And
so I bought it and gave it to him as
a gift and said, here, that reminds me of you.
And he looked out Batman as said no, the.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Joker, Marcelet brushes off the gibe and eagerly opens the box.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
We started building, and during that building he received like
fifteen ten to fifteen phone calls from his girlfriend and
his father who were in town and who were waiting
for him for dinner, but he didn't want to go.
He was sitting there with me. We were talking business
and he was building this batmobiles and then he said, yeah,
(13:48):
I'll come later and I'll join you later. And we
were sitting there. I was sitting on one end of
the conference tail, he was in on the other, and
we were rolling the car. But he clearly didn't didn't
want to go and spend. He clearly didn't want to go,
and I had the feeling that it was a difficult relationship.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And then there was the money.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I remember one time we went into a restaurant here
in Munich and I had a capacco real cauliflower, two
or three coke zero, and so my bill was less
than fifty euros, probably the whole bill was seven hundred something.
(14:30):
Marsade started with Cavia. He had all the classic oyster
whatever beefsticked Fiorentina, and this bottle of sparkling wine, and
it was a seven hundred and twenty euro bill and
he gave nine hundred. He tried to be humble, or
to give the picture of being a humble person devoted
(14:52):
to his job. On the other hand, paying everything cash
and living a life that is in the high one
percent of Munich. Where does the money come from? That
was something that I always was questioning.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Myself, possibly thought Sampt. The early days of Wakad had
seen the company pay its executives huge bonuses before it listed.
But even that didn't quite account for Marclec's apparent wealth,
because it wasn't just flashy dinners.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
He was invested with seven million into Telegram.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
The messaging app founded in Russia. Marcelek was an early shareholder.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But when you only make a million before tex at wirecard,
you have to work fifteen years and eat ravioli from
cans and live in a very reduced lifestyle to save
up the money to invest like that in one single
(15:55):
direct investment.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
And of course samt didn't even know at this point
about the palatial property on Prince Rigenstrasser that he found
out two months later after warecard blew up. Even though
they would often meet at a restaurant very close by, I.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Could have beaten myself. There's Kifa at a restaurant he
in Munich, and we met very often at the Kiefer restaurant,
and his secret office was like five hundred meters or
less than five hundred meters down the road.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
After the day he'd poked around the villa, sumptualizes that really,
whatever he thought he confidently knew about Yan Marsilek is
barely anything substantial at all, and that in the eighteen
months they worked together, Marcelek's entire persona at Wakard was
effectively a lie. I needed to talk to someone who'd
known him for longer than SAMD. That's coming up after
(16:53):
the break. Martin Ostelo first met Jan Marcelek when he
joined warkat almost sixteen years ago.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
Young guy at the time. He was wearing a tea
shirt and jeans, had an impressive charisma about him. But
you never would have thought that this guy would be
the manageable company very quickly at the time.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Back then, in two thousand and five, Marcelek was just
twenty five. He hadn't been to university, he hadn't even
finished school. After joining the company five years earlier in
two thousand, he'd been quickly promoted, and by the time
Martin arrived at Warkat Marcelek was head of it.
Speaker 6 (17:42):
Rhetorically, I already realized at that stage that he was very,
very good. He was like a hoover. He could take
information extremely quickly and formulate a summary, almost in a
fashion where you would lick your lips. Well, you'd love
(18:03):
to have that ability to quickly take something on board
and be able to express it in a form that seemed,
on the one hand, smart but still very very understandable
for a broad audience.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Martin says that Yan worked his way up the company
by bringing order and structure to what was otherwise a chaotic,
fast growing startup.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
If you were the type of guy or girl to
say there's no structure of this, I can't do this,
you were out of the door very very quickly. If
you went in and said I can't do this yet,
how do I do it? Take ownership and do it yourself.
Those people exceled at wire card in the early days.
That's why probably Jan Maselek had an easy to climb
(18:47):
ladder because he was a doer.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
And one thing he was particularly good at was charming people.
Sometimes it almost seemed like he was setting himself a
challenge to win someone to in side by doing something
like deliberately turning up late.
Speaker 6 (19:05):
We had CEOs of very important companies and he would
just come twenty minutes late and still charm this individual
that they seemed like the best friends afterwards, where you
would think that would be inexcusable, but Ian had the
ability to turn things around. I think there really there
are traits that I have had strong envy for, but
(19:27):
I envied Ian so much because it seemed so damn
simple for him. He really mastered giving you the feeling
that you're important, despite the fact that you could figure
out over many, many years that it was a routine.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
With his people skills, Jan was a good manager. He
became Martin's boss, and as you can hear, Martin really
liked him.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
Iyan had a broad spectrum of friendly to formally friendly.
So when, for example, when you went to young and
said do you have a minute, do you have a second.
He would always say for you always.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Which wasn't to say he didn't have edges.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I did have the feeling that he liked people or
didn't like people. In occasions when people got on his
bad side or showed him that they didn't like him,
he could be extremely ruthless is the only word I find.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
Over time, Martin noticed that to get on with him
you needed, ultimately not to take things too seriously. Marcelet
liked to test people to see if they could hold
their own against him.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
He did say things to shock and provoke people here
and there. He had a Vina Shmid sort of the
Vienna joking, a playfulness, slayfulness, so he could get away
with murderers saying certain things. And you also have to
understand that he was in a circle of management where
(21:10):
making politically incorrect jokes was in fashion. I think Jan
he'd enjoy walking on a ledge and some people falling down.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
So by the early twenty tens, Jan Masselek is a
hugely successful young corporate executive. He's basically the man running
this fast growing German company which is on its way
to a main market listing. He's a bit of a
Maverick and prefers action over rules. But whatever is striking
(21:47):
or unusual about Yan, it tends to get masked by
the fact that Moicade is also an unusual company. It
primarily processed payments for high risk industries. The business's other
payment processes in companies and banks were hesitant to get
wrapped up in like gaming, gambling and pawn although Walcatt
(22:07):
had a different way of describing that.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
A dult content or emotional content as we would call it.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
And over the coming years, Wakat's appetite for risk also
took it to countries where the rules of business were
more ambiguous.
Speaker 6 (22:22):
I had heard before that he had several trips to Russia.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
When would that have been.
Speaker 6 (22:29):
That was four or five years maybe three, three to
five years before Wirecard Gillets, so.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Sort of twenty fifteen, twenty fourteen, fifteen sixteen, a round.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
A bit later, yeah, yeah, fifteen sixteen. Yeah. But of
course we did build up Wirecard Russia in that time
as well, so it wasn't so surprising.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Just weeks before Wirecard collapsed, something surprising did happen, and
it chilled Martin Marcelet wanted to invest money in a
new company that was issuing credit cards. He needed the
board's approval. Martin and another colleague had run the numbers
on this company and they knew this investment was a
(23:19):
bad idea. Right ahead of the crucial board meeting, they
told marcelect that explicitly they gave him the figures on
the returns wirecard could expect. Martin remembers specifically what he said, long.
Speaker 6 (23:35):
Term, the card project over the next decade, if it
runs a decade, then it would potentially cover one point
to five million.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Yan took it all on board. There's no way he
didn't know the numbers.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Martin says, Jan was very.
Speaker 6 (23:51):
Very quick in understanding, and an hour later we are
sitting in the meeting and he simply ignored what we said.
He said, the card project alone in the first year
will covered the one point five.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Million, with you in the room, with us in the
video conference.
Speaker 6 (24:07):
So he just ignored what we had discussed.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
It's a very curious kind of game.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
You know, you're watching him do this, and obviously it's clear,
based on everything you understand about him until now, that
he you know, is not stupid. He didn't mishear you.
He didn't, you know, didn't lose the facts.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
We were flabbergasted, We were speechless. It had never happened
like that. I mean, we were all important people in
the company. It was like a puns in the face.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
What really comes across, as Martin recounts, this is just
how effortlessly and easily Marcelect liede how confidently. It's like
he knew he had Martin and his colleague under his thumb,
and they wouldn't raise an objection. And I think that's
what made it so shocking for Martin, because it obviously
raised the question what else had Marcelet lied so bloodlessly about. Today,
(25:08):
I think Martin is actually quite amused by everything that
has happened. He tells me that part of the reason
he decided to talk to me is that it's a
kind of coping mechanism, which I think hints at how
deeply the whole experience has affected him. The collapse of
Wirecard and the revelations that Marcelect was a spy. They
(25:28):
don't anger him, they sadden him.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
I think the biggest tragedy of young marcellek is he
probably could have earned millions gazillions with his charm and
his wit and his business of humen and his skills
that he didn't need to be what he turned out
to be. That is really something that most people who
(25:53):
work at Wargard or witnessed him. When discussing it afterwards,
we all come to that point.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
When marcell x fraud at Wakaard was discovered, the company's
stock went to zero and Martin's life savings were basically
wiped out. For me, the remarkable thing is that despite that,
Martin evidently still holds quite a lot of affection for
his former boss.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
I often asked myself, now did I know the true
jan at all? And how much of it was an act?
How much was a genius, how much was in between?
How much was learned, how much was instinctive? All these
questions I really can't answer. I also asked myself when
(26:41):
young wakes up in the morning, what he thinks now
of all the contexts of all the employees. Was that
all just a lie? At what stage was a lie?
What was the turning point?
Speaker 4 (26:53):
If it was possible to wave a magic wands or whatever?
Could you imagine going for a drink with him or
dinner with him?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Now?
Speaker 6 (26:59):
And Oh yeah, actually I think I would love to
do that. Actually, I have thought about getting into Moscow
and seeing if I could organize it. I was thinking
one could try that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Why haven't you?
Speaker 6 (27:16):
I mean, honest truce is, would you have the balls
to actually go to Moscow? And I feel that, you know,
endangering yourself and your family that probably if I had
a guarantee that I would not be touched. I'd love
to get his side on this.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Martin says he feels certain there must have been a
point where something in marce Lex's life went quite wrong
to set him on the path he took, but when
he thinks back, he really can't say exactly when that
might have been. Martin realizes that Marcelet could talk, he
could charm, he could hold court, he could make you
feel like you were his clothes friend, but actually he
(28:02):
almost never revealed anything about his life directly at all.
What he did at home or where he had come from.
Speaker 6 (28:11):
His whole youth is a complete blank. He never spoke
of that, nor did he speak of Vienna in his youth,
which is quite remarkable, because I mean, I would have
felt like I'd had a lot of personal talks with him,
But only later did I realize he said a lot,
(28:34):
but he didn't really give an insight of his past
at all.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
A few months ago, I traveled to a small Austrian
town called Kloster Neuberg. It's just outside Vienna Cluster. Neuberg
is dominated by a huge monastery on a hill at
its center. It's home to about twenty eight thousand people,
and it's the place where Yan Marcelect grew up. In
(29:09):
the town hall cafe, I meet up with four people
who knew Yan as a child. Rudolf Koch rustles up
some Vellingta black coffees. He used to be the head
master of the local secondary school, Marcelex School, and he's
brought along another teacher, Bruno, and two of marcele X's classmates,
(29:30):
Verena and Philip. We all sit down around the table together.
I hope they might be able to tell me something
about Yan Marcelect before Wakard, about the experiences that formed
him as an adult. This is the first time that Philip,
Rudolph and Bruno have spoken to the press about Marcelek.
When Wakard went down and Marcelek went on the run,
(29:53):
it was a shock.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Top ten white collar crime of y.
Speaker 6 (30:02):
And financier from Lubushop Vad and me and as.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
As Philip runs down the list of Jan's exploits, he
says it sounds like a bad James.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Bond plot, essentially James Bond Blood.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Rudolph shows me and my producer Peggy and old school yearbook.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Oh wow, lots more hair.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
Yeah. In the picture, Yana is in the front row,
crouched down, almost ready to spring up again. He's looking
directly at the camera, arm resting on one knee, fingers
laced together. There's maybe twenty other students in the class.
They all look like classic teenagers, awkward in their own bodies. Yan,
(30:45):
though he looks very at ease. It would, of course
be totally stupid to expect to see signs of a criminal,
treasonous future in an old school photo. But this, this
isn't exactly what I expected either, I learned. Yan actually
began his schooling at a less in Vienna, a French
private school, before moving back to the local school in
(31:07):
Klosterneuburg when he was twelve, and because of his time
at the Lise, Yan was fluent in French. Philip, his
former classmate, remembers a time when their French class was
being taught by a supply teacher, a sub and Jan
just stood up and said he was leaving. The teacher was,
of course totally taken aback, but when they tried to
(31:29):
put him in his place, Yan answered with a five
minute monologue in flawless.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
French and.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Totally baffled.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Yan must have gone to the place he always went
whenever he could skip a lesson. In fact, where he
went even in the minutes between lessons, to the library.
And that's where he got to know Bruno.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
I mena active and said I'm going to skip Nazi mid.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Bruno taught history, German and philosophy, and he also looked
after the school library. Soon after Yan joined the school,
the head of it told Bruno that Marcelek was his
star pupil and suggested he could help with the new
computer system the library had got. So Jan became Bruno's helper.
Bruno says that it couldn't have run smoothly without him.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
On Jan mats l.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
In fact, when everyone here thinks of Jan back then,
they picture him sat in front of the computer in
the library. He was obsessed with it and with learning
about this new thing called the internet. Jan was certainly
different from other fifteen year olds who were more likely
to be skateboarding or playing football outside.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
He had the imkiful as eston Avaksen and the aston fineering.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
Philip says, it was like they were all still children
and was somehow not. He seemed more like a fully
grown adult already. But you haven't, Na says he was
maybe aloof but definitely not arrogant blink of.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
In cambem I need to f.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
Yet other kids admired him, and the teachers well, the thing,
Philip remembers them saying, is be more like Yan.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
What is his name? So?
Speaker 4 (33:36):
I wonder if his teachers knew about his strategy to
avoid washing his socks.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
Well the Abbots said for this washing to Soten.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Samoning.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Philip says that one day Yan announced he had done
a cost benefit analysis and he would never wash a
pair of socks again. Calculating the value of his labor
and time in washing, drying, and folding the sock, he
decided it was cheaper just to take out a subscription
and have new pairs constantly delivered. It sounds almost like
Yan enjoyed being unconventional in making decisions and crucially for me,
(34:12):
telling people about those decisions that seemed to expose or
undermine the sense of what others thought of as being normal.
If Yan liked computers and enjoyed being a typical he
wasn't a loner, though, says Verena. Far from it. He
had a wide group of friends and she was part
of it. And yet she also remembers that Yan never
(34:35):
socialized outside of school. He never took friends home. He
had a very private side to his life.
Speaker 6 (34:43):
His actor had on z prevad umfertin is thus bobbedcap
mitk Norman or a Mitklasen as I saw.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Verena uses this German word schreg to describe him, which
you might say means a skew set at a different
angle to the rest of the world. Jan was a
straight a student, but in his last year, two weeks
before he was due to sit his final high school exams,
he received a job offer from a tech company in Vienna.
(35:12):
He accepted and he told his schoolmates he was leaving immediately.
He wasn't going to bother with the exams androns.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And again he's a jam pistols.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
Everyone thinks he's daft leaving at the eleventh hour. You've
got to have a lot of self belief or maybe
self delusion to do something like that aged seventeen. Think
back to how important exam results seem to you at
that age. I can remember believing my whole future depended
on them. Rudolph jumps in to offer an explanation.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
SI.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
He says that the job offer was very, very lucrative.
But all four of them also suggest another possible reason
why Yan so keen to leave Kloster Neuberg. I asked
about Yan's family. He has a younger sister and a brother,
both of whom seem to lead perfectly ordinary lives. No
(36:13):
one really remembers anything about his father either way. The
father had left the family by the time Yann was
going to the local school, but everyone remembers his.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Mothershists and mutovs kim ferusch.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
Rudolph, the head master, describes Marcelek's mother as combative, but
it's obvious from his body language and the way he
raises his eyebrows as he carefully pronounces the word that
he wants me to know it's a bit of a euphemism.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
As a from marge.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
Verreina agrees with Rudolph's assessment. She now works for the
town council and she knows from Marcelek as a conspicuous woman.
Doraina says Yan's mother used to be regularly upset about
one thing or another. She campaigned against a five G
mask being put up in Ploster Neuberg and against a
development that would have threatened a nature reserve. She says
(37:09):
she's very left wing. Everyone thinks Yan had a hard
time with his mother, that it was a difficult relationship,
to the point where Yan he did whatever he could
to get away from home. I got in touch with
Anne's mother, and to my surprise, she replied, I got
(37:31):
an email from her. She said she has quote no
interest in giving us an interview because she has neither
the desire, nerves, or time to wreak over quote an
extremely unpleasant period of my life. She has asked that
we don't reveal her name here. She said it's unfair
to label her as combative and said it's a shame
(37:53):
for her campaigning efforts in town to get dismissed as
left wing and disruptive. She did say that her relationship
with her son quote changed massively the year before he
left home. She says it broke down because she quote
didn't let him get away with everything and quote didn't
let him wrap me around his little finger. She tried
(38:16):
to involve a psychologist to mediate between them. It didn't work. Yan,
she implies, had his teachers charmed, but she was resistant.
Since then, she says, she's only tried to make contact
with her son once in twenty five years. The emails
she sent me had a whole load of attachments, eighteen
(38:38):
documents concerning all kinds of things to do with Yan.
Some are press releases from as far back as two thousand,
and they make me think that despite their estrangement, she
has been tracking her son's career. She's read, it would
seem almost all of the books and materials that have
been published about the Warequad fraud. A lot of the
attachments she's sent me, though, are all about the Austrian
(39:01):
Russian Friendship Society, and she urges me to look more
into it. It's the organization in Vienna that Wakaard sponsored.
From marcell X's mother's response and from what we've heard
from others, it's clear that she and her son had
a deeply troubled and painful relationship whatever happened when he
(39:24):
left home, Verena says seemed significant because when she next
saw Yan after the exams, he appeared to be a
changed person. It was at a reunion after everyone else
had graduated. They were around nineteen years old. She says
he boasted that he now knew how the world worked,
(39:46):
that money could buy him whatever he wanted, even sex,
Even he implied sex with her. Incredulous, she told him
he was stupid. When Verena told this story, every one
around the table seemed shocked. It sounded so unlike the
Yan they knew, like he'd somehow come off the rails
(40:07):
a bit.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:19):
Before everyone gets up to leave to pick up their
children from nursery to go back to work, Philip tells
me why he agreed to speak with us.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Yeah, Pela, he or pilatives and for whom just doesn't sure.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
He says he's speaking with us because he wants people
to understand that Yan, though he had a difficult childhood,
ended up where he did because he was vulnerable. He
wasn't destined to become a fugitive, and it's deeply sad
that he did. I've always believed that people are much
more malleable things than we realize. Capable of extremes. We
(40:59):
have a tendency to see those who end up at
the fringes are somehow radically different to us broken evil.
The reality, though, is that with the right pressures, the
right challenges, the right circumstances, or all the wrong ones,
people can be walked into the strangest shapes and situations.
(41:22):
When you want to recruit someone as a spy, if
you're good at it, you understand something of that. You
look for the parts of a person's life, their personality,
their needs that you can work with, bend, change, use
their history. But not everyone with a difficult childhood becomes
(41:45):
a spy. So how did Yan Marcelett get drawn into it?
Why did he end up working with the Russians? And
what did he actually do coming up on hot money?
Speaker 7 (42:01):
If Moscow decides and it is always Moscow who decides,
if Moscow decided that this person can be and should
be recruited, then they work out ways of how to
recruit disperson.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
This is a dangerous situation because those spies tend to
be the better ones, better than the guys who do
it solely for money. Hot Money is a production of
the financial times and pushkin Industries. It was written and
reported by me Sam Jones. The senior producer and co
(42:37):
writer is Peggy Sutton. Our producer is Izzy Carter. Our
researcher is Marine Saint. Our show is edited by Karen Shakerci,
fact checking by Kira Levine, Sound design and mastering by
Jake Gorsky and Marcelo de Olivia, with additional sound design
by Izzy Carter. Original music from Matthias Boss and John
(43:00):
Evans of Stellwagon Symphonet. Our show art is by Sean Carney.
Our executive producers are Cheryl Brumley, Amy Gaines McQuaid and
Matthew Garahan. Additional editing by Paul Murphy. Special thanks to
Ruler Calaffe, Dan McCrumb, Laura Clark, Alistair Mackie, Manuela Saragosa,
(43:22):
Nigel Hanson, Vicki Merrick, Eric Sandler, Morgan Ratner, Jake Flanagan,
Jacob Goldstein, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cohne.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I'm Sam Jones.
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