German prosecutors on Monday disclosed that they had apprehended the director of Wirecard's Dubai-headquartered affiliate, as they searched for a group of suspects in the multibillion-dollar fraud probe of the payment company.
In a statement, the Munich prosecutor's office announced it had interrogated Cardsystems Middle East chief executive Oliver Bellenhaus earlier in the day and arrested him on the basis of a warrant.
The 46-year-old sports car enthusiast was apprehended on suspicion of aggravated fraud and will remain under police custody over fears that he might be a flight risk and may tamper with proof, prosecutors disclosed in a statement.
Bellenhaus is the second high-ranking Wirecard employee to be collared after the former chief executive Markus Braun, who was later released on bail. According to prosecutors, they are investigating other suspects whose names must be withheld for "tactical reasons." The whereabouts of Wirecard's former second-highest official, Jan Marsalek, are unknown.
Bellenshaus had traveled from Dubai and turned himself in for questioning, prosecutors stated. Unless a defendant is well recognized publicly, his or her own identity can be protected under German law to avoid prejudice in the legal course of action.
Wirecard, once hailed as the most lucrative investment in the ballooning financial technology landscape, filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors through an insolvency process on June 25 after company officials admitted that the missing 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) that had been represented as being kept in trust accounts in the Philippines never really did exist.
The troubled credit card operator disclosed it is digging into the magnitude of its operations through regional third parties, a major source of income, and how these operations were being carried out.
The Financial Times revealed earlier that Bellenhaus, who oversaw the German payment group's CardSystems Middle East, largely from his posh apartment in the world's tallest building, had exited Dubai and checked in at a five-star hotel in Munich.
For years, Wirecard told its longstanding accounting firm EY that CardSystems ran a profitable outsourcing payments processing business to external partners.
Bellenhaus and Wirecard's Marsalek briefed KPMG earlier this year regarding the arrangements with third parties in a special audit by EY, documents seen by the Financial Times showed.
The arrest of Bellenhaus comes after prosecutors raided the German payment group's offices in Germany and other offices in Austria as they extended their investigation into the scandal.
Creditors will meet this week to discuss the latest on the fraud investigation, including proposed asset sales with which insolvency executive Michael Jaffe hopes to recoup at least a portion of the money owed, sources said.
