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SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) – A Singaporean man now faces a total of 11 charges in connection with the scandal-hit German payments firm Wirecard after he was imposed five additional charges.
R. Shanmugaratnam, a director of Citadelle Corporate Services, was charged with five counts on Wednesday (September 30) for allegedly falsifying five more letters in early 2017 that indicated false balances on his company accounts.
Citadelle is one of two companies being investigated by the Singapore authorities.
The latest charges also come when the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) ordered Wirecard entities in Singapore to stop their payment services here.
According to the charge sheets, Shanmugaratnam is accused of falsifying two letters from Citadelle to Wirecard UK and Ireland, misrepresenting for the first time in February 2017 that Citadelle had a balance of 97.5 million euros in an escrow account ( S $ 156.2 million) as of November 30, 2016, and then again in March 2017 there was a balance of around € 177.5 million in the same account as of December 31, 2016.
However, the account did not actually have such balances, the charge sheets indicated.
In March 2017, he also allegedly forged three letters from Citadelle, one to Wirecard AG and two to Cardsystems Middle East FZ LLC, stating that his company had amounts ranging from € 30 million to nearly € 86.4 million as of 31 December. December 2016, in three escrow accounts.
But Citadelle didn’t actually keep those three accounts, according to Wednesday’s charge sheets.
All of these crimes are punishable under Section 477A of the Penal Code.
A few months ago, the 54-year-old was accused for the first time of forging four letters that misrepresented his company’s account balances. He later faced two more similar charges in August.
Citadelle has reportedly handled money for Wirecard as a trustee. However, it is not licensed to provide such services in Singapore and is not supervised by MAS. The regulator has placed Citadelle on its website’s Investor Alert List.
Meanwhile, Wirecard Singapore said in a press release Thursday that while it “regrets” the regulator’s latest directive, it intends to comply with all aspects of MAS’s instructions.
Accordingly, Wirecard will cease regulated payment services in Singapore and will return all customer funds it has.
The cessation of regulated payment services will affect all card payments at merchants using its payment platform in Singapore, as well as the use of issued prepaid cards, the company said.
“We will work with MAS to minimize disruption to payment services. Our teams, including call center and relationship managers, are here to provide assistance should any of our merchants require assistance or have further questions,” said Wirecard. in your statement.
The regulator’s latest directive may create uncertainty about the magnitude of the looming payment disruption, given that thousands of merchants in Singapore are users of Wirecard’s payment terminals.
That said, some traders had already been switching to beleaguered fintech competitors, spooked by the downfall of the parent company, The Business Times previously reported.
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