Singapore has sentenced a top executive from a collapsed commodities trading firm to 20 years in jail for her part in defrauding more than a dozen banks and causing almost $500m in losses.
Lim Beng Kim was the former chief financial officer of commodities firm Agritrade International when it collapsed in 2020 amid accusations of massive fraud.
Agritrade, whose businesses spanned palm oil and coal mining, was among a string of failures in Singapore’s commodities sector in recent years.
Lenders are struggling to reclaim loans, alleging they were tricked by forged documents and by traders pledging cargoes to multiple banks.
The biggest fallout is Hin Leong Trading, which spectacularly collapsed in 2020 around the same time as Agritrade, owing banks about $3.5bn.
Lim is said to have deceived 16 financial institutions into believing that the consolidated financial statements for Agritrade were audited — a fact she knew to be false, according to the Singapore Police Force’s Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).
“By such manner of deception, Lim dishonestly induced the financial institutions to deliver money through credit facilities granted to Agritrade,” the CAD said.
She is also said to have separately instructed her subordinate to insert a copy of the auditor’s signature into a document that falsely purported to be the audited consolidated financial statements of Agritrade.
As a result, a total of 16 financial institutions, including ING Bank, Malayan Banking, Natixis, MUFG Bank and Commerzbank, granted at least $586.5m in credit facilities to Agritrade between January 2017 and November 2019.
The company subsequently defaulted on these loans and the total loss suffered by the financial institutions amounted to around $469.1m.
Lim is said to have fled Singapore shortly after the start of investigations by the CAD and an Interpol red notice was issued against her.
The Singapore Police made extensive efforts to locate her with the assistance of multiple foreign counterparts and she was subsequently located and arrested in the United Arab Emirates.
She eventually returned to Singapore in September 2021 via a flight arranged by the UAE authorities and was placed under arrest.
Lim’s prison term will be backdated to September 2021. She pleaded guilty in December 2022.
The company has also faced allegations of fraud directed against chief executive Ng Xinwei and his father, Ng Say Peck. Police investigations against the two men are ongoing.
The CAD said it takes a tough stance against financial professionals and company officers who fail in their corporate duties and who abuse Singapore’s financial system to commit crime.
