Wirecard Fraud

Germany's fintech darling fabricated €1.9 billion in cash balances that simply did not exist, exposing catastrophic failures in auditing by EY and regulatory oversight by BaFin. This scandal surpassed even the Enron fraud (#2) in auditor negligence, as EY had signed off on Wirecard's accounts for over a decade without verifying cash held in Philippine banks. The missing €1.9 billion represented 94% of Wirecard's reported cash reserves, a proportion far higher than the 30% debt-to-equity ratio manipulation typical in corporate fraud, and triggered a 97% stock collapse from €190 to €2 per share.