The loans amount to US$1 billion ($1.37 billion) and Wirecard claimed they were for advance payments to merchants processing card transactions through its partners in Asia, according to the Financial Times, which reported the news earlier.
A representative for the Munich prosecutors declined to comment. Wirecard has previously said it’s not currently making statements to the press.
The digital-payments company filed for insolvency after admitting that almost 2 billion euros it previously reported as cash probably didn’t exist. The accounting scandal has since widened to become Germany’s worst and it now threatens to engulf top politicians, regulators and auditors.
Prosecutors allege that Wirecard officials decided to inflate the books with fake assets to make the company appear more attractive to investors, clients and lenders.
The payments company raced to raise debt in the months leading up to its insolvency, Bloomberg has reported. It was also offering comparatively high interest rates on deposits in an effort to attract another source of funding.
