Wirecard exec record falsified – DoJ chief

PHILIPPINE immigration officers falsified records to show ex-Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek briefly visited the country after he was sacked from the collapsed German payments processor, the Justice secretary said.

German and Philippine authorities want to question the former chief operating officer as part of their separate investigations into the Wirecard accounting scandal, but his whereabouts were unclear.

Entries in the Bureau of Immigration database show Marsalek arrived in the Philippines on June — the day after he was fired — and left for China on June 24.

But CCTV footage, airline manifests and other records proved Marsalek was not in the country on those dates, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said in a statement.

“The investigation has now turned to the persons who made the false entries in the database, their motives, and their cohorts,” he added.

The immigration employees have been stood down and face punishment. Investigators were also looking into “possible criminal responsibility” for the fake entries, he said.

Guevarra told reporters last month that immigration records showing

Marsalek’s transit through the Philippine city of Cebu could be part of “diversionary tactics to mislead Marsalek’s pursuers.”

Marsalek was responsible for the Asia business that became the focus of accounting irregularities — including a missing 1.9 billion euros ($ 2.1 billion) supposedly banked in the Philippines — that ultimately brought Wirecard down.