SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has charged the former chief financial officer of collapsed commodity trader Agritrade International Pte Ltd (AIPL) with cheating, police said in a statement on Monday.
Investigations against Agritrade International, which collapsed last year here amid fraud allegations, Lim Beng Kim Lulu and other officers of the company are ongoing, police said.
Lulu Lim and AIPL could not be reached for comment.
The police said the charge of “cheating and dishonestly inducing a delivery of property” was brought on Saturday.
It relates to an allegation that Lulu Lim led the Singapore branch of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank into believing that 19 bills of lading, documents which are used in shipping, had been legally and validly pledged in its favour, they said.
This resulted in the bank disbursing $19.9 million to an Agritrade supplier in October 2019, the police statement said.
If convicted, Lulu Lim would face imprisonment for up to 10 years and would also be liable to a fine.
AIPL was among a string of financial scandals that rocked commodities firms in Asia last year, prompting banks to tighten credit to the sector.
Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan and Roslan Khasawneh in Singapore; Editing by Alexander Smith