Fresh reporting out of Germany has revived long-standing questions about online gambling figure Calvin Ayre, after an investigation connected him to financial flows at the center of the Wirecard scandal.
Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), one of Germany’s largest public broadcasters, has identified Ayre as the beneficial owner of large volumes of money that moved through accounts tied to Wirecard Bank – transactions previously attributed to opaque “third-party partners” long suspected of being fictitious.
The new revelations add another layer to Europe’s largest post-war financial fraud, in which Wirecard collapsed in 2020 after auditors determined that EUR1.9 billion ($2.2 billion) supposedly held in offshore trust accounts in Manila did not exist. Former executives, including CEO Markus Braun, continue to stand trial in Munich, while fugitive COO Jan Marsalek is believed to have fled to Russia. But even as prosecutors have focused on the missing billions, investigators have been trying to understand the origins of hundreds of millions more that legitimately passed through Wirecard’s system.
According to BR’s analysis, the trail leads consistently back to Ayre, best known globally as the founder of Bodog and one of the online gambling industry’s earliest and most visible personalities. Before relocating to Antigua, where he appears to be based today, Ayre had a well-documented presence in Asia, including periods living in the Rockwell district of Manila and reportedly maintaining property interests in Bangkok. Bodog also maintained offices in Makati and Quezon City, both cities within Metro Manila. Ayre’s network of companies, BR reports, used complex offshore structures that routed transactions through multiple jurisdictions before ultimately benefiting entities linked to him.
BR’s multi-year investigation reviewed internal Wirecard data, obtained emails from Marsalek, and analyzed transaction ledgers listing more than half a million transfers. The broadcaster concluded that companies in Antigua, Hong Kong, Spain, the Philippines, and Eastern Europe funneled money into accounts at Wirecard Bank that were later used to send substantial sums – at least EUR135 million ($156 million) to Antigua alone – to entities controlled by or closely tied to Ayre. Some firms were headquartered in the same building as Errol Cort, the former Antiguan finance minister whom Ayre has described as a close friend and legal adviser.
BR’s sources, including former insiders, allege that these structures allowed large volumes of cash from online gambling and related processing operations to move discreetly without Ayre’s name appearing directly. One former associate told BR that Ayre’s business model and Wirecard’s processing capabilities were mutually dependent, describing Ayre as “the man behind Wirecard” in terms of the transaction flows that helped make the German company appear far larger and more robust than it truly was.
Ayre has been no stranger to controversy. In 2012, US authorities indicted him on gambling and money-laundering offenses tied to Bodog, seizing $66 million from accounts associated with the platform. He later negotiated a plea agreement in 2017, paying a fine without recovering the seized funds. In the years since, he re-emerged in the blockchain arena, backing Australian IT figure Craig Wright – who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto – before that claim was ultimately discredited by UK courts. A former CEO within Ayre’s blockchain group has since accused the operation of engaging in large-scale deception, allegations still being examined in civil proceedings.
The BR investigation suggests that Wirecard played a pivotal role in strengthening the appearance of legitimate business activity around its so-called third-party partners by using Ayre-linked fund flows as evidence for auditors, even though prosecutors now argue that the TPA model itself was largely fabricated. Documents reviewed by BR show that Wirecard’s auditors received account statements reflecting incoming transfers attributed to the TPA business, which helped the company present an illusion of revenue that never existed.
German investigators believe Marsalek personally helped restructure corporate vehicles for a Canadian customer – believed to be Ayre – though his lawyer has declined to comment. Antiguan officials also did not respond to BR’s inquiries, and the broadcaster says it was denied permission to film on the island as part of its reporting.
