Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Sunday said he expects the National Bureau of Investigation to submit full report on its investigation into the $2.1-billion alleged accounting irregularities of German payments firm Wirecard AG by yearend.
Guevarra said that the NBI had already submitted an initial report on the Wirecard controversy, but he is hoping that the bureau would be able to complete its probe on the alleged accounting irregularities of the German firm and Wirecard’s former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek activities by December.
“The NBI has submitted three partial reports on Marsalek and/or Wirecard. We hope to finish the investigation before the year ends,” Guevarra said in a text message.
According to Guevarra, the NBI is working together with the Anti-Money Laundering Council in “looking into the financial transactions of a law office and a tour operator linked with the local operations of Wirecard in the Philippines.”
The Philippines was linked to the Wirecard controversy after the German firm initially claimed that the US$2.1 billion that went missing was allegedly kept in escrow accounts in two local banks. But the two banks denied the existence of such accounts.
Marsalek, on the other hand, reportedly traveled to the Philippines last March 3 to 5.
Guevarra also said they formally charged and preventively suspended three officers of the Bureau of Immigration for falsifying the entry of Marsalek into the country, making it appear that the 40-year-old Austrian returned to the Philippines on June 23 and departed for China the next day.
“The DOJ suspended three BI personnel last month for tampering with the travel records of Jan Marsalek, Wirecard’s fugitive former top executive officer,” he said.
Guevarra said that the two of the three BI personnel were assigned at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport while one Immigration officer was assigned at the BI’s main office in Intramuros.