A Singapore court on Monday convicted two businessmen of falsifying documents that misled auditor EY into believing Wirecard held substantial cash in Singapore bank accounts, the Financial Times reported.
According to the FT, the forged paperwork, sent between March 2016 and March 2018, purported to show about €150mn overseen by Citadelle Corporate Services on Wirecard’s behalf. In June 2020, Wirecard disclosed that €1.9bn it had claimed to hold did not exist, triggering one of Europe’s largest accounting collapses.
British national James Henry O’Sullivan—described as a close confidant of former Wirecard chief operating officer Jan Marsalek—was found guilty on five charges, while Shan Rajaratnam, the Singaporean director of Citadelle, was convicted on 13, the news outlet reported.
Each count carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison and fines. Bail for both men was doubled to S$300,000 (about US$233,000), and sentencing is scheduled for November 20. The Singapore case is the highest-profile among several brought in the city-state linked to Wirecard, the FT noted.
In Germany, former chief executive Markus Braun and two other senior managers are on trial, while Marsalek fled to Russia to avoid prosecution. The FT also reported that several mid-level Wirecard executives have been jailed in Singapore over the past two years and that the Monetary Authority of Singapore has fined multiple banks and an insurer for anti–money laundering breaches tied to the scandal.
Read more at the Financial Times