JAMES Henry O’Sullivan, a 47-year-old British national linked to the Wirecard scandal, has been charged with 2 more counts of abetting the falsification of documents.

The latest charge comes after investigations by the Singapore Police Force’s (SPF) Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) uncovered additional falsified documents of Strategic Corporate Investments.

The white-collar crime-buster and MAS launched a joint probe in 2020 into Citadelle Corporate Services and the Senjo Group of companies, following a review of developments relating to insolvent German payment processing company Wirecard.

In a press statement released on Thursday (May 5), the SPF said O’Sullivan was charged in court with 2 additional counts of abetting Citadelle director R Shanmugaratnam to falsify documents.

O’Sullivan had purportedly instigated Shanmugaratnam, a company secretary of Strategic, to issue letters to Wirecard AG that falsely confirmed that Strategic held certain sums of money under escrow in its bank account, when it did not.

Shanmugaratnam has been charged with 14 counts of falsifying documents to-date for allegedly issuing 14 letters from Citadelle to Wirecard AG, its subsidiaries and an audit firm.

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These letters falsely represented that Citadelle held large sums of money in its escrow accounts at various points in time between 2015 and 2017, when it did not maintain such accounts or hold such balances. The proceedings against Shanmugaratnam are ongoing, SPF said.

O’Sullivan was previously charged with 5 counts of abetting Shanmugaratnam to falsify some of these documents in September 2021.

Strategic director, 58-year-old Thilagaratnam S/O Rajaratnam, was also charged in court on Thursday with an offence under Section 157(1) read with Section 157(3)(b) of the Companies Act (Cap 50).

He allegedly failed to use reasonable diligence in the discharge of the duties of his office by signing letters confirming Strategic held the certain sums of money in escrow without ascertaining if the letters’ contents were true.