WIRECARD'S FORMER TOP ACCOUNTANT ADMITS FORGING AUDIT DOCUMENTS

Stephan von Erffa, the former top accountant at Wirecard has admitted forging a document to be submitted to KPMG for a special audit.

Stephan von Erffa, the Wirecard’s ex-head of accounting that was charged with fraud, breach of trust and market manipulation and that will stand trial alongside former Wirecard chief executive Markus Braun and Oliver Bellenhaus, admitted forging documents for KPMG special audit. One year after the payment, KPMG scrutinised Wirecard’s accounts in a special audit.

The documents were linked to a €50mn payment that Wirecard had received in 2018 from an Asian business partners. In particular, KPMG’s forensic investigators wanted to see the accountant’s payment authorisation for the €50mn transfer. As no such document existed, Stephan von Erffa generated both a back-dated email and a sham “escrow request/authorisation form.”

Wirecard crashed into insolvency in June 2020 after admitting that half of its stated revenues and €1.9 billion ($2.9 billion) of corporate cash purportedly held in escrow accounts in Asia did not exist.

Link to the Financial Times article.

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