Singaporean businessman involved in Wirecard case jailed 12 months
Henry Yeo, who is among those involved in the Wirecard case in Singapore, was sentenced to 12 months jail on Tuesday (June 27).
The 67-year-old Singaporean pleaded guilty to three charges – conspiring to commit criminal breach of trust, falsifying invoices and laundering the benefits of criminal conduct.
Yeo was sentenced to 10 months jail for the first charge, two months for falsifying invoices and six months for the money laundering charge, with the sentence for the last charge to run concurrently. Five other charges were taken into consideration.
Yeo was the managing director of Jacobson Fareast Marketing Services, which was in the wholesale of textiles and furniture business.
In October 2018, Mohamed Riyaz – a friend from Mauritius – told Yeo about a business deal in which both of them could get 3 per cent in commissions. Yeo and his business were at that time indebted to various banks and he was not drawing a regular income from Jacobson.
Edo Kurniawan, vice-president at Wirecard Asia, subsequently contacted Yeo. Kurniawan arranged for James Aga Wardhana, who worked at Wirecard Asia and reported to him, to transfer $41,200 from Wirecard Asia to Jacobson’s DBS bank account.
Yeo then withdrew $40,000 from Jacobson’s bank account and handed it over to Wardhana, with Jacobson retaining the remaining $1,200 as commission.
Subsequently in December 2018, $81,870 was again transferred from Wirecard Asia’s bank account to Jacobson’s account, of which Yeo withdrew $79,485, handing it over again to Wardhana, while keeping the remaining $2,385 as commission.
Before the second transfer was made, Yeo was asked by Wardhana to create invoices for both the transfer made in October 2018 and the then upcoming one to conceal the purpose of transfer.
Wardhana, acting on instructions from Kurniawan, provided Yeo with invoice amounts, invoice templates for reference and descriptions for “marketing and intelligence reports”. Yeo then prepared the falsified invoices and sent them to Wardhana over Telegram.
In total, Wirecard Asia suffered a loss of $123,070 arising from Yeo’s offences.
Kurniawan left Singapore on Oct 10, 2018, before investigations started. An Interpol red notice was issued against him in September last year, weeks after a warrant of arrest was issued.
Wardhana was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment on Jun 20 after pleading guilty to multiple charges – including one count of criminal breach of trust. He was one of two individuals sentenced then, in what was the first Wirecard-related conviction in Singapore and globally.
The Attorney-General’s Chambers asked for a sentence of 15 to 19 months for Yeo, while Yeo’s lawyer James Ch’ng asked for a total jail term of nine to 12 months.
In his mitigation plea, Yeo’s lawyer Ch’ng told the court that Yeo had cooperated with the authorities by handing over relevant documents and had even been interviewed in 2019, while he was recovering from a stroke.
He added that Yeo now works as a Grab driver and can barely make ends meet. Yeo is also enrolled in a debt repayment scheme.
District judge James Elisha Lee said while Yeo was not the main perpetrator, he played an instrumental role.
Lee noted that this was Yeo’s first brush with the law, and that he had made restitution of $3,585 – the full amount of money he had made as commission through the two transfers.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now