Yeo Chiew Hai Henry (“Yeo”), a 67-year-old Singapore citizen, was convicted on 27 June 2023 of criminal breach of trust and other offences in relation to Wirecard Asia Holding Pte Ltd (“Wirecard Asia”). He was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.
Yeo was the managing director of Jacobson Fareast Marketing Services Pte Ltd (“Jacobson”). Jacobson was in the business of wholesale textiles, furniture, and trading in spare parts for heavy equipment, construction materials and marine equipment.
Yeo admitted that in December 2018, he conspired with Wirecard Asia's employees, Edo Kurniawan (“Edo”), James Aga Wardhana (“Wardhana”) and Chai Ai Lim (“Chai”), to misappropriate $81,870 from Wirecard Asia. In furtherance of the conspiracy, the monies were then unlawfully transferred from Wirecard Asia’s CIMB account to Jacobson’s DBS account. Yeo withdrew $79,485 of this sum and handed it to Wardhana, who in turn handed $79,000 to an unknown person. He handed the money to Wardhana despite having reasonable grounds to believe that it in whole directly represented Edo’s benefits from criminal conduct. Yeo retained $2,385 as his commission for facilitating this transfer.
To provide Edo with a false pretext to cover up the unlawful transfer of monies from Wirecard Asia, Yeo falsified four invoices from Jacobson to Wirecard. This included an invoice for a sum of $62,300, purportedly for “costs and charges of interim marketing intelligence reports”, when Yeo knew that these reports were not provided to Wirecard Asia.
In respect of the above, Yeo pleaded guilty to one count of criminal breach of trust, one count of money laundering by transferring Edo’s benefits from criminal conduct, and one count of falsifying documents in relation to Jacobson’s accounts. Five similar charges were taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing.
Wirecard Asia suffered a total loss of $123,070 arising from Yeo’s offences.
Wardhana and Chai, who was the Head of Finance at Wirecard Asia during the material time, were also charged with related offences for their roles in the abovementioned conspiracy to commit criminal breach of trust. On 20 June 2023, Wardhana and Chai pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to 21 months’ imprisonment and 10 months’ imprisonment respectively.
Edo is currently at large. A Warrant of Arrest and an INTERPOL Red Notice have been issued against Edo in connection with the abovementioned offences.
Other aspects of the Wirecard investigations remain ongoing, and the Police will continue working with the German authorities on the Wirecard investigations.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
27 June 2023 @ 12:20 PM