Not a joke: the Wirecard fugitive, the CIA, and the Financial Times’ “Whoopsie-Daisy” moment. Seriously, picture this: Jan Marsalek, Wirecard’s vanished COO – a man accused of evaporating €1.9 billion into thin air – isn’t sipping piña coladas in some dacha. Nope. In August 2021, as Kabul imploded and the world watched desperate souls cling to departing planes, the CIA slid into his Telegram DMs. Their request ? Jan, darling, got any rogue pilots? Ours are... booked.

A financial fugitive became Langley’s Kabul air-traffic controller

Marsalek’s actual Telegram messages to alleged Bulgarian spy-friend Roussev, finally after years of Wirecard scandals unveiled by the Financial Times in their 'Hot Money' podcast episode 8, reads like a rejected 'Mission: Impossible' script: “Interesting request from sort of friends at the CIA. They urgently need aircraft to fly out contractors from Afghanistan. All dodgy airlift companies in Russia and Turkey etc. are sold out or refuse to fly because insurance won't cover the loss of an aircraft [in a warzone]. Do you know anyone who’s a bit rogue ?”


Roussev, ever the helpful Bulgarian comrade who was taken to court in London as an alleged spy-friend of Jan Marsalek, replies his dad flew guns into Africa. Cue Marsalek’s deadpan: “Pax Americana rests on your broad and manly shoulders.”  They then dive into plane specs, landing rights, and real-time Kabul airport updates like two travel agents booking a hellish group tour. This, interestingly, comes more than a year after Wirecard's insolvency from June 2020, which we now know was largely fabricated, and the newly appointed savior of America allegedly residing nowhere other than in Russia at the time.


But wait – it gets richer.

The Uncles – Marsalek’s Shadow US State Department

Rewind to 2018. The FT discovers emails between Marsalek and a ProtonMail collective called “The Uncles”, the FT gets an anonymous tip: “Check Marsalek’s emails with ‘The Uncles’”.  What do they find ? A ProtonMail gang of ex-CIA warlords, retired US ambassadors, and US intelligence brass advising Marsalek on relocating Austria’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Yes, Jerusalem. Baruch ata Adonai.


Marsalek’s pitch clearly stir-shakes spy-novel Martini suave: “Gentlemen, our mutual friend speaks highly of you. Might you establish informal channels to probe the U.S. position ? Perhaps shape Austria’s domestic debate? Navigate the ... geopolitical complexities ?”


The FT’s “oopsie” moment

The FT’s response when they first stepped on these spicy emails from 2018 ? Quote: “The emails ... seemed tangential at the time. We were busy!”  They shelved it. Forgot. Moved on. A nothing burger.

Fast-forward to the year 2025. Sam Jones, FT’s podcast maestro, connects the dots after a whopping 7 years or so: “Hang on... The Uncles... CIA links... Was this a network ?”  Podcast listener: Yes. A fugitive ex Wirecard COO was running backchannel diplomacy for US ex-spooks while his UK auditors highly allegedly just napped.


The hypocrisy hammer

While the FT sermonizes on “rule-based orders”, Marsalek – a man whose LinkedIn might read "CIA Rogue Fixer | Embassy Relocator | Blockchain Wizzard" – was Langley’s go-to fixer. Yep. Julian Assange rots in prison for exposing their secrets; Marsalek gets hired by them. Munich’s courts dissect Wirecard’s staged insolvency literally without a single FT reporter present. But London ? Oh, they’ll drag Munich’s truth-seekers over coals.

The punchline ?

The Uncles are real. Marsalek’s free. And the FT ? Just realized they left a Cold War sequel in their drafts folder.



Listen to the FT play catch-up yourself, they even have subtitles (click 'CC' below the video): Hot Money: MatryoSharks (starting minute 23:27 +)

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