How cash of investors into biggest German fintech company Wirecard was transformed into Rolls-Royce's and sharks of crooks?
"Mr. O'Sullivan, a U.K. native, was well-known to some Wirecard executives as a payments-industry entrepreneur, according to people who knew them. He entertained them regularly from his home base in Singapore, including at events such as the Singapore Grand Prix race.
He lived a luxury lifestyle, owning a brand-new convertible Rolls-Royce in Singapore, where import taxes can double the sticker price of cars. He built an aquarium in his house for three hammerhead sharks, according to former business associates.
Mr. O'Sullivan was a confidant of Wirecard's former Chief Operating Officer Jan Marsalek, who authorities in Germany suspect committed "commercial gang fraud" in the downfall of the company. Mr. Marsalek is on the lam and couldn't be reached to comment. A lawyer for Mr. Marsalek has previously declined to comment.
Wirecard presented Mr. O'Sullivan as a special consultant and adviser to Mr. Marsalek in several acquisitions for which he was paid, according to one of the company officials.
Mr. O'Sullivan was a key player in one of Wirecard's biggest deals, the 340 million euro takeover of several Indian payments businesses in 2015, the Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the deal. Wirecard bought the businesses from a private Mauritius-based investment fund and agreed to pay more than eight times what the fund had paid for businesses just six weeks before.
Mr. O'Sullivan was described as "the architect of the whole transaction" by an Indian accountant in an email discussing the deal. Mr. O'Sullivan also arranged for the owners of the Indian businesses to meet Mr. Marsalek and later outlined potential terms of a deal in emails filed in an Indian court case, according to filings reviewed by the Journal.
In July, the central bank and financial regulator of Mauritius opened an investigation into whether Wirecard used the deal for round-tripping, a practice by a company to recycle the proceeds of a transaction back into its own books.
KPMG, which Wirecard hired to conduct a special audit of its operations before its collapse, examined accusations that the Indian payments deal was fraudulent, and was unable to identify the ultimate owners of the fund." [1]
1. Adviser Linked to Wirecard's Deals
Davies, Paul J. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]19 Nov 2020: B.1.
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