The Most Wanted Man in Europe
BY Jörg Diehl, Roman Dobrokhotov, Christo Grozev, Martin Hesse, Roman Höfner, Martin Knobbe, Christoph Giesen, Roman Lehberger, Friederike Röhreke, Fabian Schmid, Fidelius Schmid, Marcel Rosenbach, Thomas Schulz, Sandra Sperber and Finn Starken
It’s the middle of summer in Nice, and the Mediterranean is lapping gently against the walls of the quay. A man with shortly trimmed dark hair in a black suit and a radiant white shirt is striding briskly toward a cutter. A second man is carrying his case. An attractive woman — tall and blond, her summer dress fluttering in the wind — is pacing on the aft deck of the Poseidon III, laughing nervously. Her name is Natalya Zlobina, and she is the Russian lover of Jan Marsalek, one of the most-wanted men in Europe.
The scene, recorded by a camera at the Port of Nice, becomes a bit blurry. The man in the black suit climbs down a ladder to the Poseidon III and greets the woman with a kiss. She laughs; he seems annoyed. Now, it’s possible to recognize his face, well-known these days from the wanted posters plastered on the walls of train stations and airports: It is Jan Marsalek himself, the former COO of Wirecard, which was once listed on Germany’s blue-chip stock index, the DAX. He has been on the run since June 2020.
