Scrutable

Wirecard, a Payments Firm, Is Rocked by a Report of a Missing $2 Billion
The German company’s share price has plunged 80 percent, and its longtime chief executive has resigned.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine is full of this and WaPo has interesting detailed discussions:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... story.html

One heading: "Wirecard and the Dangerous Allure of Lots of Cash".

Dangerous Allure indeed.

What gets me is the number of companies who are audited by one of the big four accounting firms, only for them to actually be hiding some financial black hole.

It seems they're not very good at their job...

They are excellent at their job. The big four accounting firms extract large sums from the economy and channel it to their senior people.

The Wirecard thing is most interesting in that the FT flagged the problem - but people refused to believe it.

I spent 18 years with a Big 4 firm in various countries. I still haven’t decided whether to write straight memoirs or sex it all up in a thriller.