Hot Money: Agent of Chaos

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Finance as alchemy​

When the German banking giant Wirecard collapsed in June 2020 amid a roaring fraud scandal, public opinion was shocked. The company, praised as the country’s innovative answer to the fintech industry of Silicon Valley, had been widely seen as a ‘German miracle’ following recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. Its bankruptcy involved a massive state prosecution that sent shockwaves through world markets. To the astonishment of German and international observers, Wirecard executives were found to be involved in all manner of deception: direct falsification of accounts, fake cash-flows, re-routing of payments through non-existing shell companies, ghost subsidiaries. While forging profits, they had obscured a mammoth debt of €3.5 billion.

This, of course, is not an unfamiliar tale. The explosive growth of finance as a percentage of the ‘real’ economy in recent decades has been matched by an equally dazzling scale of financial fraud, from the Enron scandal to Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scheme (the largest recorded fraud in world history) in the 2000s, to more recent scams in cryptocurrency markets such as FTX. Denizens of finance – both system insiders (Madoff was a former chairman of the Nasdaq exchange) and ‘maverick’ outsiders (Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX had been seen as a challenger of mainstream banking elites) – have displayed a unique capacity for alchemy: whipping up distorted realities in which false truth and true fact become indistinguishable. Their plotting is often aided by regulatory bodies, rating agencies and consultancies that firm up such distorted realities through either action or inaction.

More:

Finance fraud is not a deviation from the norm but a reflection of it | Aeon Essays

Finance fraud is not a deviation from an essentially rational system but a window onto the reality-distortion of markets

aeon.co

 

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Episode 1: The Bribe | FT​

Jun 10, 2025 Hot Money: Agent of Chaos
A series of clandestine lunch meetings leads Sam’s editor to send him off to Vienna in search of one man.

Hot Money, the award-winning podcast series from the Financial Times and Pushkin Industries, is back with a third season.
In 2020, the Financial Times exposed a €2bn fraud at Wirecard, a high-flying German fintech. Many thought that was the end of the story.
But for FT reporter Sam Jones, it was just the beginning. This season on Hot Money: Agent of Chaos, Sam investigates Wirecard’s chief operating officer who vanished just as Wirecard collapsed — and who turned out to also be a Russian spy.
From an Ibizan sting operation to an attempted takeover of the Austrian intelligence service, his reporting spirals into a world of warlords, espionage and disinformation.
All in an attempt to answer two questions: who is the real Jan Marsalek? And what does his secret life reveal about the powerful forces he serves?


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Jun 10, 2025 Hot Money: Agent of Chaos
As Sam arrives in Vienna, a political bomb explodes. A secretly recorded video exposes ties between the far right and Russia, plunging the Austrian government into crisis and revealing a world where people such as Jan Marsalek can thrive.

Episode 2: The Friendship Society | FT Podcasts

 

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Jun 17, 2025 • Hot Money: Agent of Chaos

Sam tracks down an old contact in Tunisia. A former UN official living off grid. He reveals how he ended up involved in one of Jan Marsalek’s wildest schemes.

Episode 3: Thrill Seeking | FT Podcasts

 

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Jun 24, 2025 Hot Money: Agent of Chaos
On the ground in Austria and Germany, Sam digs deep into Marsalek’s past. His odd habits. His strange house. The hypnotic effect he had on former colleagues. And how he is remembered by childhood friends.

Episode 4: Backbearings | FT Podcasts

 

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Jul 1, 2025 Hot Money: Agent of Chaos
How does one become a spy? Sam speaks with a former Russian intelligence officer about how Marsalek might have been recruited. And to what ends.

Episode 5: A Different Set of Rules | FT Podcasts