SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): A controlling manager at Wirecard Asia Holding took instructions from one of its then vice-presidents to take a “loan” from the firm before receiving S$47,000 in her personal bank account in October 2018.
Acting on further instructions from Edo Kurniawan, who was the firm’s vice-president of controlling and international finance at the time, See Lee Wee handed $40,250 to an unknown man, and another $3,310 to Kurniawan.
See, 30, who used to work at Wirecard Asia, the Singapore subsidiary of German payment processing company Wirecard, used the remaining $3,440 on her personal expenses.
She was sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail on Tuesday after admitting she had worked with her then superiors – Kurniawan and Chai Ai Lim – to commit criminal breach of trust. Two counts of money laundering were taken into account.
See has since repaid $18,200 to Wirecard Asia.
In June 2023, two other former Wirecard Asia employees, including Chai, then 44, were sentenced to jail after they admitted to crimes, including criminal breach of trust.
James Aga Wardhana, then 40, was given 21 months’ jail, while Chai was sentenced to 10 months.
The cases of several others, including James Henry O’Sullivan, 48, who were allegedly involved in the Wirecard case here, are still pending.
Kurniawan, who left Singapore on Oct 10, 2018, before investigations into him started, is still at large. 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.
For the current case, Deputy Public Prosecutor Vincent Ong said that in early October 2018, Kurniawan told Chai he needed to transfer $100,000 to one “India” and asked her if Wirecard Asia had funds available for such a transaction. She conducted a check and told him it had enough funds.
Kurniawan then approached See and told her he needed cash urgently. He asked her to take a loan from Wirecard Asia, withdraw some monies, and hand them to him as soon as possible.
He also told See that the loan would be converted into a purported bonus for her, so she did not have to worry about repaying it.
DPP Ong said: “(See) did not know the purpose of the transfer and did not inquire about it from Edo. While she felt... uncomfortable about the arrangement, she agreed to Edo’s suggestion.”
Soon after, Kurniawan told Chai he wanted the transfer of monies to be reflected as an “employee loan” to See. On Oct 5, 2018, Chai arranged for $47,000 to be transferred to See’s bank account.
Kurniawan then contacted See and gave her instructions on what to do with the monies.
The prosecutor said the purported loan to See was not converted into a bonus and due to See’s offence, Wirecard suffered a loss of $47,000.
On Tuesday, defence lawyer Derek Kang pleaded for See to be given not more than two months’ jail, stressing that she was a first-time offender and had taken instructions from her then superiors.
In June 2020, Wirecard filed for insolvency in Germany after admitting that €1.9 billion (S$2.75 billion) in cash was missing from its accounts. Its former chief executive Markus Braun and several other top executives were then arrested. Braun’s case in Germany is pending.
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