Singaporean Jailed for 12 Months in Wirecard Scandal Just to Earn $3,585 Commission

When one thinks of embezzlement, money laundering and fraud, one usually thinks of criminals amassing hundreds and thousands of dollars in stolen funds. As they usually say, “Go big or go home”. 

However, Henry Yeo, an accomplice in an embezzlement and money laundering case concerning financial services group Wirecard Asia, has neither made it big nor gone home. 

The 67-year-old Singaporean and former managing director of Jacobson Fareast Marketing Services has been sentenced to 12 months in jail for committing criminal breach of trust, falsifying invoices, and reaping the benefits of the money laundered during the case.

The benefits? $3,585.

Yeo Complicit in a Scheme that Led to $123,070 in losses for Wirecard Asia

In October 2018, Yeo was struggling to keep his company and himself afloat. 

His company was indebted to loans from several banks, and Yeo himself did not receive a regular income from Jacobson Fareast. 

That was when Edo Kurniawan, the Indonesian vice president of Wirecard Asia, contacted Yeo. In return for helping Kurniawan transfer funds out of Wirecard’s DBS account, Yeo would receive a 3% commission for the procedure. 

For the first transaction in October 2018, James Aga Wardhana, another accomplice of Kurniawan, transferred $41,200 of Wirecard Asia’s funds to Jacobson Fareast’s DBS account. Yeo then took $1,200 for himself and transferred the rest to Wardhana. 

In the second transaction, an even greater sum of $81,870 was transferred to Jacobson Fareast. Thus, Yeo kept the remaining $2385 as commission while handing the remaining funds back to Wardhana.

Afterwards, Yeo printed out fake invoices to conceal his and Wardhana’s tracks.

In total, Yeo made a total commission of $3,385, while Wirecard Asia made a total loss of $123,070.

A disproportionately small reward for a massively heinous scandal. 

Embezzlement Case Leads to First Wirecard Conviction in Company’s History, Wirecard Asia Vice-president on The Run From Authorities

While the gravity of the situation was not immediately obvious to Yeo, the embezzlement case he was part of turned out to be the first Wirecard-related conviction in Singapore and globally. 

As with most money laundering cases, the plot went bust when the company auditor could not verify 1.9 billion euros held abroad by third-party partners. 

In Wirecard’s offices in Germany, a plot to generate “phantom revenue”, which operates through bogus transactions with partner companies to mislead creditors and investors, was exposed.

This scandal resulted in further investigations into Wirecard Asia, which led to the incrimination of Kurniawan, Wardhana and Yeo in Singapore.

While Wardhana and Yeo have been arrested, Kurniawan is still at large.

An Interpol red notice was issued against him in September 2022, calling for his arrest.

Yeo cooperated with the authorities during investigations, made restitution of $3,585 taken as commission

Meanwhile, Yeo has tried his best to atone for his past misdeeds.

After his initial arrest, he helped to submit the falsified invoices and other documents to the authorities and has also made restitution of the $3,585 he took as commission. 

In earning such a small sum of money in comparison to the magnitude of his misdoings, Yeo definitely lost a lot more in terms of his freedom and his reputation.