Singapore extradites former Wirecard director to Germany over links to global fraud ring
The German national is allegedly involved in a criminal organisation, money-laundering offences
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[SINGAPORE] Brigitte Hauser-Axtner, a 49-year-old former director of the collapsed German payments giant Wirecard, was extradited from Singapore to Germany on Monday (Mar 30), the Singapore Police Force said in a press statement on Tuesday.
She was wanted by the German authorities for her alleged involvement in a criminal organisation, computer fraud and money-laundering offences linked to the Wirecard Group.
Hauser-Axtner, a German national, was an Employment Pass holder working for an unrelated company in the city-state at the time of her arrest on Nov 4, 2025.
The extradition follows a formal request received by Singapore from Germany on Dec 24, 2025. On Feb 10, 2026, Hauser-Axtner consented to her surrender and was committed to prison to await the transfer.
International sting operation
Her arrest in November was part of a massive international operation coordinated by the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, involving law enforcement agencies from 10 countries.
The operation targeted fraud and money-laundering networks involving German payment service providers. Four major payment service providers in Germany were involved, and though reports at the time did not name the firms, German investigative news outlet Der Spiegel identified Wirecard as one of them.
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Investigators alleged that between 2016 and 2021, the suspects were involved in stealing credit card data, setting up fake accounts, authorising and concealing payments, and money laundering.
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office and prosecutors said that during this time, the suspects used credit card details of more than 4.3 million individuals from 193 countries in their scheme. Damage racked up by the suspects amounted to more than 300 million euros (S$444.4 million), said Europol, the EU’s law enforcement arm.
Based on previous reports, 18 people were arrested in the raids.
The Singapore Police Force applied for a warrant for Hauser-Axtner’s arrest on Nov 1, 2025, after the Attorney-General’s Chambers assessed that the legal requirements for extradition were met.
Wirecard has been mired in legal trouble since it filed for bankruptcy in 2020, after it disclosed that 1.9 billion euros of cash – which were supposed to be in bank accounts in the Philippines – did not exist.
The statement from the police noted: “As a responsible member of the international community, Singapore is committed to facilitating international cooperation to combat transnational crime and money laundering, including in matters of extradition in accordance with our domestic laws and international obligations.”
Singapore has a bilateral extradition treaty with Germany that requires both countries to agree to the reciprocal handing over of fugitives in “the interest of law and order”. The two countries must also find it mutually beneficial for such an arrangement, based on a parliamentary reply in 2016.
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