[1/2] The headquarters of Wirecard AG in Aschheim near Munich, Germany, September 22, 2020.
REUTERS/Michael DalderMUNICH/BERLIN, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Former Wirecard executives go on trial on Thursday, two years after the collapse of the payments company that produced Germany's biggest post-war fraud scandal and sent shockwaves through the country's political and financial establishment.
Wirecard, which started out processing payments for pornography and online gambling, rose to be worth $28 billion and displaced Commerzbank (CBKG.DE) in Germany's DAX blue-chip index.
But in June 2020, Wirecard was forced to admit that 1.9 billion euros were missing from its balance sheet.
In the ructions that followed Wirecard's demise, the head of German financial regulator BaFin resigned and the head of Germany's accounting watchdog also stepped down.