The headquarters of Wirecard AG, an independent provider of outsourcing and white label solutions for electronic payment transactions is seen in Aschheim near Munich, Germany, September 22, 2020. REUTERS
SINGAPORE, Jan 6 (Reuters) – A Singapore court sentenced two businessmen to lengthy jail terms on Tuesday for falsifying documents that tricked auditors into believing payments firm Wirecard had hundreds of millions of euros in bank accounts, local media reported.
Wirecard collapsed in 2020 in Germany’s biggest post-war fraud scandal after conceding that 1.9 billion euros ($2.23 billion) it had booked in its accounts had never existed.
Singaporean R Shanmugaratnam, 59, and Briton James Henry O’Sullivan, 51, were given jail terms of 10 years and six-and-a-half years’ respectively, local news outlet CNA reported.
The court did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the decision.
Shanmugaratnam and O’Sullivan had taken instructions from senior Wirecard executives then issued false confirmation letters, intentionally misrepresenting to auditors that the fintech startup had hundreds of millions in euros held in escrow bank accounts of Singapore accounting form Citadelle, reported CNA.
In September, Citadelle’s director Shanmugaratnam was convicted of 13 charges for falsifying 13 balance confirmation letters between 2016 and 2018, while O’Sullivan, who had used Citadelle’s services to set up Singapore companies, was found guilty of five charges of abetting Shanmugaratnam, according to CNA.
Both men would appeal the sentences and convictions, it said.
Reporting by Xinghui Kok; Editing by Martin Petty
