A 46-YEAR-OLD man has been arrested on Aug 30 in relation to the falsified letters of Citadelle to various Wirecard-related entities, said the Singapore Police Force in a statement on Tuesday evening.

He will be charged in court on Sept 1 with one count of Section 477A read with Section 109 of the Penal Code for allegedly abetting Citadelle's director to issue a letter to a Wirecard subsidiary. The letter falsely represented that Citadelle held a balance of 86.4 million euros (S$137 million) in an escrow account as of Dec 30, 2016 when Citadelle actually did not maintain such an account.

Citadelle director R Shanmugaratnam is facing a total of 14 charges involving about 1.2 billion euros.

The charges include 11 counts of falsifying letters to various Wirecard-related entities that Citadelle held millions of euros in escrow accounts for them, when the accounts either did not hold such sums or were not held by Citadelle.

The Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force and the Monetary Authority of Singapore had in July last year announced a joint investigation into Citadelle Corporate Services, Senjo Group and its subsidiaries for suspected falsification of accounts under the Penal Code (Cap 224), as well as carrying on a trust business without a licence under the Trust Companies Act.

Investigations are ongoing. The offence of abetting the falsification of accounts under Section 477A read with Section 109 of the Penal Code is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, a fine, or both.

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