SINGAPORE – Two people who used to work for Wirecard Asia Holding were sentenced to jail on Tuesday after they admitted to crimes, including criminal breach of trust, involving monies up to $223,070 each.

James Aga Wardhana and Chai Ai Lim are the first two people to be convicted over Wirecard-related offences in Singapore and globally.

Wardhana, 40, admitted that he was linked to a misappropriated sum of $223,070 when he was the international finance process manager of Wirecard Asia, the Singapore subsidiary of German payment processing company Wirecard.

The Indonesian man was sentenced to 21 months’ jail on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including one count of criminal breach of trust involving $100,000.

Six other charges, including those involving the remaining $123,070, were considered during sentencing. Wardhana has made no restitution.

Chai, 44, whose offences involved $87,000 in total, was the head of finance at Wirecard Asia.

The Singaporean was sentenced to 10 months’ jail after she pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust linked to $47,000.

Another similar charge involving the remaining $40,000 was taken into consideration during her sentencing. She has made restitution of $70,000.

The cases of five other people, who are allegedly involved in the Wirecard case and were earlier charged in Singapore, are still pending.

They include Briton James Henry O’Sullivan, 48, and Singaporean See Lee Wee, 30, a former Wirecard Asia employee.

In June 2020, Wirecard filed for insolvency in Germany after admitting that €1.9 billion (S$2.8 billion) in cash was missing from its accounts.

The company’s former chief executive Markus Braun and several other top executives were then arrested. Braun’s case in Germany is pending.

The Straits Times previously reported that Wirecard in Singapore had been providing payment processing services to about 1,900 companies in the Republic before the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) ordered it to stop on Sept 30, 2020.

MAS also directed the company to return all customers’ funds within two weeks.

Wardhana and Chai had engaged in a conspiracy to commit their offences with other individuals, including Edo Kurniawan, whom they had reported to while they were working at Wirecard Asia.

Kurniawan, who was then the vice-president of controlling and international finance at the company, left Singapore in October 2018 before investigations started against him, and is still at large. Court documents did not disclose his nationality.  

An Interpol red notice has been issued against him. Such a notice requests law enforcement units worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or other legal action.

In May or June 2018, Kurniawan convinced Wardhana to be part of a scheme to get $100,000 from Wirecard Asia, but did not say why he needed the money.

On July 16, 2018, Kurniawan sent an e-mail to one Stephan von Erffa, stating: “As discussed, James (Wardhana) came to me and told me his intention to resign from the company... To retain him... we agree to pay him ($100,000) as variable bonus.”

The person Kurniawan sent the e-mail to agreed to hand over the amount.

Wirecard Asia later transferred $100,000 into Wardhana’s personal bank account.

After that, as instructed by Kurniawan, Wardhana handed the amount to a person called “Karthi”, whom he did not know.

Separately, in early October 2018, Kurniawan told Chai that he needed to transfer $100,000 to India.

He later managed to get her to arrange a transfer of $47,000 from Wirecard Asia to See, who was then a controlling manager at the company.

On Kurniawan’s instructions, See then withdrew more than $40,000 of the amount and passed it to an unidentified man, said the deputy public prosecutor.

The DPP added that See later withdrew another $3,310 and handed the amount to Kurniawan.