Ex-DOTr exec, others face criminal charges for Wirecard scandal

Picture taken on September 18, 2018 shows the company logo at the headquarters of the technology and financial services company Wirecard in Aschheim near Munich, southern Germany. (Photo by Christof STACHE / AFP)

MANILA, Philippines — Former Transportation Assistant Secretary Mark Tolentino and several other individuals would be facing an array of cases for their alleged involvement in the scandal involving German payments processing firm Wirecard AG.

According to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Prosecutor General, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Bank of the Philippine Islands recommended charges against lawyer Mark Kristopher Tolentino and M.K. Tolentino Law Office, Joey Dela Cruz Arellano, Judith Singayan Pe, Wirecard chief operating officer Jan Marsalek, and several Jane Does and John Does.

Tolentino was believed to the Filipino trustee of the German firm. A statement from the Department of Transportation (DOTr) said he was fired by President Duterte in May 2018 “due to questionable dealings and unfairly involving the First Family with matters regarding the Mindanao Railway Project.”

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The respondents were accused of violating the following laws:
* Falsification of Commercial Documents in relation to Cybercrime (Article 172 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act No. 10175)
* Violation of Section 55.1, in relation to Section 56.1 of R.A. No. 8791 or the The General Banking Act,  in further relation to Section 36 of R.A. No. 7653 as amended by R.A. No. 11211 (New Central Bank Act) in relation to Section 6 of R.A. No. 10175 (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012)
* Violation of Section 33 of R.A. No. 8792 (Electronic Commerce Act)
* Violation of Section 4(a)(b) of R.A. No. 10175 (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012)

“The DOJ received the complaint of the National Bureau of Investigation entitled ‘NBI and BPI vs. Atty. Mark Kristopher G. Tolentino, et al.’, under NPS Docket No. XVI-INV-21E-00169 on 31 May 2021, relative to the controversy involving Munich-based digital technology company Wirecard AG, dragging Philippine-based banks into the scandal for allegedly holding trust accounts to the amount of 1.9 billion euros or 2.1 billion dollars for the company,” the Office said.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, the complaint would undergo preliminary investigation.

“The Prosecutor General assigned prosecutors to thoroughly investigate the present complaint, with the directive that other pending or future cases between or among same or related parties, involving the same controversy, shall likewise be consolidated to, and resolved by the same assigned prosecutors,”  it added.

It can be recalled that Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra announced last June 2020 that Tolentino was invited by the NBI to shed light on his involvement in the Wirecard scandal.

Wirecard, a financial technology company that started out as a means to facilitate consumer payments to shops using cashless transactions — processing payments from banks to merchants and getting a fee in return — was accused of bloating its accounts.

It was revealed that $2.1 billion was missing from its books, leading the company to file for insolvency.

Local banks were involved in the issue after Wirecard named two financial institutions as the receivers of the missing money, but officials claimed in 2020 that Wirecards’ billions never entered the country’s financial system.

Instead, it was merely made to appear as such to cover the tracks of the perpetrators, reports said.

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