Money Men: A Hot Startup, A Billion Dollar Fraud, A Fight for the Truth

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Since work was prohibited on the Sabbath, which began at sunset, I would have to ride as fast as I could to arrive at my grandparents’ home without breaking the rules of Shabbat, which included no bike riding.

When in 2014, Dan McCrum, a bank analyst turned investigative journalist, received a tip about “German gangsters” running a company that advertised itself as the German PayPal, he could not have imagined that his reporting would allow him to expose the biggest corporate scandal in post-war Germany. There are many characters highlighted in the book and it is to Dan's credit that the story works as a continuing and enticing narrative - here is Dan's interview with Gideon Rachman from 30 June https://www.

As always, I would be taking a nearly impenetrable file home with me, and the evening would not be my own. As I shuffled through files in a rusty file cabinet I felt overwhelmed by the sense that I should not be here. I am glad McCrum (Easter egg for Borat fans) didn't try and deify the short sellers as most of them are complete scumbags. Money Men is the astonishing true story of Wirecard's multi-billion-dollar fraud, Europe's biggest new tech darling revealed as a house of cards. It is fascinating and a bit scary to read about the legal and surveillance pressure Wirecard put on the journalists at FT, how they used the legal system against them.

Or more often than not, lecturing other countries about "standards" and then not applying them to their own dealings. Later in life, too, I would come to understand how fear and insecurity and clinging to worldly possessions can become a driving force in one’s life. If you’re coming to Money Men for a thorough and in-depth deep dive into a story you followed in 2019-20, then this is everything you could ask for and more. And so I would study a case at night and the following morning rush to court, put on my wig and gown and defend someone.You hit publish, then you almost throw up,” says Paul Murphy, a Financial Times colleague of Dan McCrum, at a crucial stage in their investigation of Wirecard. She put down her spatula – she was always stirring something – turned from the stove and looked at me.

You'd imagine a big financial crash would have taught capitalism a thing or two but well, you'd be wrong. As McCrum dug deeper, he encountered a story stranger and more dangerous than he ever imagined: a world of short sellers and whistleblowers, pornographers and private militias, hackers and spies. Taking advantage of every loophole that ever existed and relying on businesses across Asia that didn't have the regulation that the Western world has, they ponzi schemed their way to a 20 billion dollar evaluation. I knew superficially about the financial scandal of course, as it is surely the biggest in Europe since the Kreuger crash of 1932. The book follows in rather too much detail the internal bickering at Financial Times, anbd the doings of various short-sellers, rather than the murky dealings at Wirecard.I also really liked to learn more about the colourful characters who are living their lives as professional short sellers.