SINGAPORE, Jan 6 — A Singapore court sentenced two businessmen to lengthy jail terms today for falsifying documents that tricked auditors into believing payments firm Wirecard had hundreds of millions of euros in bank accounts.
Wirecard collapsed in 2020 in Germany's biggest post-war fraud scandal after conceding that €1.9 billion (RM9.04 billion) it had booked in its accounts had never existed.
CNA reported that Singaporean R. Shanmugaratnam, 59, and United Kingdom citizen James Henry O'Sullivan, 51, were given jail terms of 10 years and six-and-a-half years, respectively.
The court did not immediately respond to a request to confirm the decision.
The accused 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 firm Citadelle.
According to CNA, in September last year, 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.
Both men would appeal the sentences and convictions.
