The investigation into the $2.1-billion Wirecard controversy will not be completed by the end of this year, Justice Undersecretary Emmeline Aglipay-Villar said Thursday.
Villar said based on the update by the National Bureau of Investigation to the Department of Justice, the agency would continue its probe next year.
“There is no indication that the investigation will be finished before the year’s end,” Villar said in a text message to reporters.
She cited the latest update submitted to the Department of Justice by the NBI on Sept. 4 that it was still doing its probe.
“Subpoenas have been issued against certain persons who may be able to shed light on Wirecard and its business transactions,” Villar said.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said earlier that the NBI had already submitted three partial reports on Wirecard’s former chief operating officer Jan Marsalek’s activities in the Philippines this year.
Guevarra said the NBI was also coordinating with the Anti-Money Laundering Council and “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 payments firm initially claimed that the $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.
The 40-year-old Austrian Marsalek, on the other hand, reportedly traveled to the Philippines on March 3 to 5.
The Justice department has formally charged and preventively suspended three officers of the Bureau of Immigration for tampering with the travel records and falsifying the entry of Marsalek into the country, making it appear that he returned to the Philippines on June 23 and departed for China the next day.
Guevarra said two of the three Immigration personnel were assigned at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport while another was assigned at the bureau’s main office in Intramuros.
