The former chief financial officer (CFO) of commodity trader Agritrade International which collapsed last year has been charged by Singapore police with cheating.
Lim Beng Kim Lulu is accused of obtaining letters of credit (L/Cs) and procuring forged certificates of quality when there was no underlying cargo.
Ongoing investigations
The former CFO allegedly duped the Singapore branch of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank into believing that 19 bills of lading he presented were legally and validly pledged in its favour, according to a Singapore police statement.
It says this resulted in the bank disbursing US$19.9 million to one of Agritrade’s suppliers in October 2019.
Investigations into Agritrade, Lulu Lim and other officers of the company are ongoing, police said.
Collapsed trading houses
Agritrade’s collapse was one of a string of spectacular failures of Asian trading houses last year, with many banks’ trade finance operations particularly exposed to some apparently massive fraud schemes.
Trading houses that failed spectacularly include Pheonix Commodities, Hontop Energy, Zenrock Commodities, Petro-Diamond and Hin Leong Trading, which alone owed around US$983 million to at least 20 banks.
Categories: Trade Based Financial crimes News
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