Mark Tolentino: The extravagant lawyer involved in the Wirecard scandal

A week before Wirecard was shattered in June 2020, the search for 1.9 billion euros in cash seemed to pick up pace.

The auditor of the EY payment group had demanded an iron proof outside Wirecard’s claim that it had the amount of two Philippine lenders, the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) and BDO Unibank.

Hard evidence that the money existed was the biggest hurdle between Wirecard and a net health statement from EY, a life-saving potential for the group that was then besieged by its accounting.

While shareholders awaited the signing of Wirecard’s annual results, the group’s chief operating officer, Jan Marsalek, was involved in a frantic set of exchanges with an email account bearing the name of a Mark Tolentino, who is the name of a Manila-based lawyer that The German company had told EY was its administrator in the Philippines, who oversaw the cash on local bank accounts on his behalf.

On June 17, 2020, an email from the account said, “I am currently driving to BPI headquarters. . .[and am] by phone with the bank “.

Marsalek fired 24 hours later: “Frankly, the current situation is extremely baffling! Please call me! “

Extravagant lawyer, businessman, first defender of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and unlikely YouTube star, Tolentino denies being the patron of Wirecard.

His Manila office also serves as a studio, where he gives legal advice to a channel popular enough to have earned him a plaque that the California company awards to anyone who reaches 100,000 subscribers.

Days after Marsalek emails, Wirecard filed for insolvency after revealing that the € 1.9 billion in cash did not exist. Munich prosecutors are now investigating business fraud and the German parliament at the center of an investigation.

Prosecutors believe Marsalek was one of its architects, suggesting his emails were written knowing the 1.9 billion euros were imaginary. A Marsalek lawyer declined to comment.

“This is not my email address”

The email exchanges, which were sent by the Wirecard administrator to the parliamentary poll and seen by the Financial Times, show how the Philippines suddenly stood at the center during the death of a company that for years defended itself. as a rare German technological success.

They also raise doubts about Tolentino’s role. When the FT visited Tolentino at its Manila offices in late February, he described himself as a “victim” of the Wirecard scandal. Showing the email exchanges with Marsalek, he said, “It’s the first time I’ve seen them. This is not my email address “.

A video uploaded to his YouTube channel, however, includes the email address, attorney@marktolentinolaw.co, which appears in the exchanges with Marsalek. Tolentino did not respond to any requests for comment on the email address shown in the video.

On the only other occasion he spoke to the FT shortly after Wirecard’s failure last year, Tolentino said yes “Not the Wirecard Pattern”, “had never signed any documents” with the group and accused the disgraced company of “identity theft.”

This account is at odds with KPMG’s special audit on Wirecard. The findings, released in April 2020, increased pressure on EY to find irrefutable evidence that the € 1.9 billion was real.

The appendix to the audit, which remains unpublished but has been seen by FT, details a meeting at Tolentino’s office in March 2020 with representatives of KPMG, EY and Wirecard in which it was reported that the lawyer went open bank accounts at BPI and BDO on behalf of the payment group.

Tolentino told FT that he met with “potential clients” who spoke German (including someone he described as “the boss” and people he believed were his accountants) in February or March 2020 after lining up outside. his office. He declined to elaborate, citing lawyer-client privilege.

From seafood to Covid vaccines

Nearly a year after the fall of Wirecard, Tolentino is expanding its own eclectic paper portfolio.

“I’m a 20% lawyer and an 80% entrepreneur,” Tolentino told FT in his office. His business interests include exporting seafood and what he said was the upcoming release of a hand sanitizer.

He recently became the CEO of MKG Universal Drugs Trading, which claims to be the exclusive inter-company distributor of Chinese Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine in the Philippines once the punch has obtained the necessary authorization.

The vaccine was the center of controversy after some of Duterte’s security guards received doses last year from a batch of smuggling into the country.

The fury seems to have done little to cool Tolentino’s own political ambitions, centered on a new organization linked to Manny Pacquiao, a national boxing hero who is now a senator.

It was in his capacity as a lawyer when Tolentino appeared in the last and frantic months of Wirecard’s existence.

Until the end of 2019, the alleged € 1.9 billion was believed to be taken into account at OCBC, Singapore’s second largest bank, with a local company, Citadelle Corporate Services, which apparently acted as an administrator and supplied EY confirmations of existing money.

A change of trustee

According to the appendix to the special audit, Tolentino told KPMG that in November 2019 he signed a contract with Citadelle transferring to him the responsibilities of trustee of Wirecard. Citadelle had recommended it to the payment group, the appendix says.

Citadelle director R Shanmugaratnam has been charged with forgery in Singapore and has yet to present any reasons. Through his lawyer, he declined to comment, citing the proceedings against him.

OCBC had no bank relationship with Wirecard and Citadelle had no deposit account, according to someone familiar with the matter. OCBC declined to comment.

In March 2020, BDO and BPI received balance confirmation requests with a “MK Tolentino Law Office” letterhead, according to documents viewed by FT.

When the documents were shown, Tolentino declined to comment on whether his law firm had sent them, but confirmed that the signature that was there matched his. “Anyway, it has no legal influence, as it is a scanned copy,” Tolentino said. “It simply came to our notice then [for documents]”.

Following this request, EY received what appeared to confirm that the € 1.9 billion was in the banks, according to an audit report by the Big Four firm seen by FT.

But in June, with KPMG’s special audit increasing the pressure, EY demanded from Philippine banks proof that the money existed. In the week of June 15, EY received its response: BDO and BPI said the alleged previous confirmations of the money’s existence were “false”.

Battle with the banks

Email exchanges with Marsalek in the following days included one from the “Tolentino” account that seemed to show intense efforts to resolve the situation.

A member of BPI’s legal team had been called in and said the bank’s board of directors would launch an investigation into an employee who had contacted EY, according to an email. The email also stated that a meeting had been set up with a member of the BDO board.

BDO told FT he had no knowledge of the emails or any “alleged” meeting with a board member. He and BPI, who did not respond to requests for comment, have previously said they had no relationship with Wirecard.

Shortly after the fall of Wirecard, the Philippine authorities launched an investigation into the German group’s local partners and agents. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told FT last year that Tolentino had been summoned to “shed light” on the matter. Tolentino and the banks are also embroiled in legal battles.

The dodging 1.9 billion euros was not Wirecard’s only draw with the Philippines. It hosted a payment processor, PayEasy solutions, directed by a former Wirecard employee and later exposed as a hoax.

Political ambitions

Tolentino is no stranger to government business. He was backed by Duterte – with whom he shares an alma mater university and a fraternity – when he ran for mayor in 2016 and lost, in a city in Mindanao, the southern island of both men. Most recently, he had a brief stint as deputy secretary in the Department of Transportation.

While authorities are investigating the fall of Wirecard, Tolentino has been caught in a storm over the Sinopharm vaccine. He told the FT that authorities had questioned him about the smuggling blows and that they had inspected the crab containers of his fishing business, but found nothing. It was, he said, a “waste of [his] time “.

Duterte himself apologized this month for receiving an unauthorized Sinopharm blow from a special batch donated by Beijing that had been approved for “compassionate use.”

Whether or not Covid would be a hot topic in Philippine politics next year, Tolentino wants to be involved. “Political Beliefs” is the topic of one of its three Facebook pages, along with free legal inquiries and “jokes”.

The lawyer said he should be first on the list of candidates for a Pacquiao-linked political organization, which is considered a strong candidate to run for president next year.

The victory of the legendary boxer could still see Tolentino win a seat in the country’s House of Representatives.