Former top Wirecard accountant admits falsification of documents for KPMG special audit
Stephan von Erffa says the fake payment authorization was an isolated case
Gabriel ThomasSeptember 4, 2026
Wirecard's former head of accounting has admitted to forging documents requested by KPMG as part of a special audit ahead of a trial later in the year.
Stephan von Erffa is one of three defendants in proceedings brought by Munich public prosecutors over the spectacular collapse of one of Germany's most successful technology companies.
The 47-year-old is the first Wirecard executive to admit wrongdoing since Oliver Bellenhaus, head of a subsidiary in Dubai, surrendered to the authorities in July 2020 and acted as the prosecutor's key witness.
Wirecard plunged into bankruptcy in June 2020 after the company admitted that half of its reported sales and €1.9 billion in company funds allegedly held in escrow accounts in Asia did not exist.
Von Erffa is one of three Wirecard managers charged with fraud, breach of trust and market manipulation this year. He, Bellenhaus and the former CEO Markus Braun, who denies wrongdoing, will be tried later this year.
Von Erffa denied any involvement in the sweeping scam and accused Wirecard's fugitive second managing director, Jan Marsalek, during a parliamentary inquiry into the scandal last year. However, the police investigation found evidence that von Erffa falsified documents in early 2020, which were then passed on to the auditors of KPMG and EY.
The documents were related to a €50 million payment Wirecard received in 2018, allegedly from one of the Asian escrow accounts transferred by a trustee at the behest of Erffas.
A year after the payment, KPMG examined Wirecard's books as part of a special audit. The investigation was launched by the board of directors after the Financial Times raised questions about possible accounting manipulations in October 2019.
The forensic examiners from KPMG wanted to see von Erffa's payment authorization for the 50 million euro transfer. Since no such document existed, the top accountant decided to fabricate one, he told prosecutors, people familiar with the matter.
Using a private computer on which von Erffa reset the system date to December 2018, he created a backdated email and a fake "Escrow Request/Authorization Form" for the €50m, both viewed by the FT.
Von Erffa told prosecutors that the forgery was a single and isolated case, according to people familiar with the matter. He said the transaction itself was genuine and that he produced a document to back it up, under intense pressure from KPMG to provide evidence. He stressed that he was not willing to forge documents to fudge the company's accounts.
The collapse of Wirecard, which was valued at more than 24 billion euros, shook the German financial and political elite. Wirecard's long-time auditor EY did not recognize the fraud for years, while the German financial regulator BaFin protected Wirecard from short sellers and prosecutors took action against critical journalists.
OCBC, the Singaporean bank that allegedly held the escrow accounts, told Wirecard's administrator after its collapse that it had never held any significant amounts of cash on behalf of the trustee and that some of the accounts did not exist at all, according to documents obtained by the FT present.
Prosecutors found that the 50 million euros sent to Wirecard came from one of its Asian business partners, who had previously borrowed 100 million euros from Wirecard and sent half the money back through a series of opaque companies to disguise its origins , according to people familiar with the matter.
The Munich public prosecutor's office and a lawyer for Erffas declined to comment.
