Jail for Singaporean, Briton over offences linked to Wirecard

Once such a notice is issued, the police in other countries can be on the lookout for foreign offenders. The Red Notice can then be used to support extradition proceedings after an arrest is made.

Oliver Bellenhaus, a German who used to be managing director of Cardsystems Middle East FZ – a Dubai subsidiary of Wirecard Technologies – was also named in court documents tendered by Singapore’s prosecution.

Deputy public prosecutors Gordon Oh, Alexandria Shamini Joseph and Louis Ngia had earlier stated in court documents that O’Sullivan got to know Shanmugaratnam after the Briton engaged Citadelle’s services to set up companies in Singapore.

Citadelle then offered corporate secretarial services to 30 of O’Sullivan’s companies, including Brightyear, Senjo Group and Senjo Payment.

O’Sullivan was also the owner of multiple accounts on e-mail platforms and messaging app Telegram. Shanmugaratnam believed that he was communicating with O’Sullivan through these e-mail accounts, said the prosecution.

Court documents stated that O’Sullivan was Marsalek’s long-time business partner and friend.

O’Sullivan introduced Marsalek to Shanmugaratnam on an occasion before July 2015, said the prosecutors.

“According to (Shanmugaratnam), he was asked by (Marsalek) to act as an escrow agent between Wirecard entities and (O’Sullivan’s) companies,” they added.

Among other things, Shanmugaratnam received a request on Feb 23, 2016, from accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) for Citadelle to confirm the balance of all accounts held by Wirecard AG and/or its subsidiaries with Citadelle as of Dec 31, 2015.

In March 2016, he received a document from Marsalek, which “contained draft wordings to be put into balance confirmation letters”.

The DPPs said: “Shortly after, Shanmugaratnam prepared (three) letters on Citadelle’s letterhead using the wording provided in (the) document.

“Shanmugaratnam then sent the three letters to EY via e-mail on March 29, 2016. On the same day, EY Germany replied to confirm receipt of the e-mail.”

The letters had mentioned three escrow accounts, and each of them purportedly had a balance of between €30 million and more than €66 million. Court documents stated that, in fact, Citadelle was not holding these sums of money for Wirecard and/or its subsidiaries as of Dec 31, 2015.

On May 23, 2016, Shanmugaratnam received an e-mail from Bellenhaus, asking him to provide confirmation that Citadelle held an additional €41.5 million in an escrow account as of March 31, 2016.

The e-mail contained the wording to be used for a letter of confirmation to be addressed to WCUKI.

In May that year, Shanmugaratnam prepared letters using words provided by Bellenhaus. After that, he sent them to Bellenhaus via e-mail.

The letters had mentioned two escrow accounts, and each of them purportedly had a balance of between €30.3 million and €41.5 million as of March 31, 2016.

Shanmugaratnam went on to commit similar offences involving the remaining letters, and five of them were linked to O’Sullivan.

Wirecard 

after disclosing that €1.9 billion in cash, supposed to be in bank accounts in the Philippines, did not exist.

The company’s former chief executive Markus Braun and several other top executives were then arrested.

On Jan 6, the court heard that O’Sullivan and Shanmugaratnam will be appealing against their convictions and sentences.

The pair still have three pending charges in total that will be dealt with at a later date.