Ex-Wirecard Finance Chief Charged With Fraud

More than three years after its collapse, Wirecard’s former finance chief has been accused of fraud.

Burkhard Ley, who spent 11 years as the chief financial officer of the German payments firm and then worked as an outside advisor, was charged Thursday (Dec. 14) with fraud, breach of trust, accounting and market manipulation, the Financial Times reported.

Ley is one of four former Wirecard executives who were arrested in 2020 and jailed following one of the biggest accounting scandals in Germany’s history.

However, he was later released, with authorities saying they had second thoughts about keeping him in custody, as most of the wrongdoing at the company happened after his tenure.

Wirecard was valued at more than 24 billion euros ($26.3 billion) at its peak but fell apart in June of 2020 when it revealed that 1.9 billion euros ($2.09 billion) in corporate cash linked to outsourced operations in Asia did not exist.

According to the FT, German prosecutors alleged that Ley duped Wirecard’s investors and creditors by fabricating the outsourced business in Asia. According to prosecutors, the operations, which accounted for half the company’s revenue and nearly all its profits, were used to inflate its share price.

The report said Ley has denied the charges, with his lawyers saying the prosecution’s evidence is largely based on “dubious statements” from another former Wirecard executive who implicated Ley at trial.

The charges against Ley come as the trial of Wirecard’s former chief executive Markus Braun and two other former executives is already underway, and is expected to run until at least the summer of 2024.

In June, a panel of judges in Braun’s case heard that the former-CEO told his general counsel that compliance was “crap” and unnecessary for the now-defunct operation.

That month also saw two former Wirecard executives sentenced to prison in Singapore, following the first criminal convictions handed down in charges tied to Wirecard’s downfall.

James Wardhana, ex-international finance process manager of Wirecard Asia, and Chai Ai Lim, who was the head of finance at Wirecard Asia, were given prison terms of 21 months and 10 months respectively for conspiring to misappropriate funds.

Meanwhile, Pav Gill, the former employee who blew the whistle on wrongdoing at Wirecard, has recently launched a service designed to help other whistleblowers.

Gill’s Confide platform lets employees anonymously report bad behavior by their employers. Companies can take that report, investigate and share their findings. From there, the whistleblower can determine if the matter has been handled properly.