Germany’s financial regulator, BaFin, didn’t just pull a Bernie Madoff with regard to possibly entirely fraudulent fintch Wirecard, although it certainly did that, ignoring and dismissing red flags like so many demands for war reparations for a decade. It also went to extraordinary lengths to protect the company, persecuting nay-saying reporters and short-sellers like so many, well, you know. Now, Germany’s known for going to rather great lengths to back up its businesses, its legal system a near-perfect environment for any allegations of wrongdoing against them to die, but sending journalists to jail in a case in which that journalist was proven right seems like an escalation even for them. Now, we may know why.

Germany’s financial watchdog has reported one of its employees to state prosecutors on suspicion of insider trading linked to Wirecard, shortly before the payment firm’s spectacular collapse…. The suspect works in BaFin’s securities supervision department and sold structured securities based on Wirecard’s shares on June 17 last year, the regulator said.

That was just a day before news broke that Wirecard’s auditor, EY, had said it was unable to account for 1.9 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in the accounts, and a week before Wirecard filed for insolvency…. As the company edged towards collapse, BaFin staff bought and sold its shares in ever higher volumes.

German regulator reports Wirecard insider trading in own ranks [Reuters]