THE indictment of an executive of the Bank of Philippine Islands (BPI) has been recommended last Thursday by the Department of Justice (DOJ), having found probable cause in his role in the $2.1-billion Wirecard AG controversy.
In a statement released to the media, the DOJ said Joey dela Cruz Arellano (alias Joey Cruz Arellano) would be charged with four counts of falsification of bank certificates and two counts of violation of Section 55.1 (a) in relation to Section 56.1 of Republic Act (RA) 8971 (The General Banking Act of 2010) in relation to Section 36 of RA 7653, as amended by RA 11211 or the New Central Bank Act.
The case stemmed from the complaint filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) last May 2021 against Arellano, German payments company Wirecard AG’s Chief Operating Officer Jan Marsalek, former DOT Assistant Secretary and lawyer Mark Kristopher G. Tolentino, Judith Singayan Pe and several Jane and John Does.
However, the DOJ said the charges against Marsalek, Tolentino, Pe and others were dismissed for insufficiency of evidence.
The justice department did not provide other details of its resolution.
The NBI’s investigation was prompted by a complaint filed by the BPI anchored on the alleged fake bank documents submitted by Tolentino to an auditing firm as proof that Wirecard had 1.9 billion euros in its trust accounts.
Tolentino was linked in the scandal after his law firm M.K. Tolentino Law & Business Consultancy Office admitted opening and maintaining foreign currency deposit accounts with BDO and BPI, but did not name their clients, citing absolute confidentiality required by the Foreign Currency Deposit Act.
Tolentino’s camp has denied knowing or participating in any alleged irregularity involving Wirecard’s money.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) also maintained that the missing money of Wirecard did not enter the Philippines.
Two of the country’s biggest banks—BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO) and BPI—were previously linked to the scandal.
However, then BSP Governor Benjamin E. Diokno claimed that those behind the anomaly merely used the names of the two banks to cover their tracks as initial reports showed none of the missing $2.1 billion entered the Philippine financial system.