Agritrade's CFO pleaded guilty to duping 16 banks out of S$631 million

Agritrade International, a Singapore commodity firm spanning palm oil and coal mining, financed itself through trade credit: banks disbursed funds to Agritrade's suppliers for purchases, expecting repayment from the company or its customers. Between January 2017 and November 2019, its CFO Lulu Lim Beng Kim instructed subordinates to submit unaudited and false financial statements to the 16 financial institutions assessing how much credit to extend.

The institutions — major banks from Japan, South Korea, India and Taiwan — disbursed more than US$586.5 million to the suppliers and their subsidiaries, and lost S$631 million, an amount the prosecution called 'unprecedented and staggering', nearly equal to everything Singaporeans lost to all scams in 2021. Investigations found members of Agritrade's senior management had helped incorporate those supplier subsidiaries or sat on their boards.

The scheme unravelled when collapsing oil and coal prices strained the company and fraud allegations surfaced against chief executive Ng Xinwei and founder Ng Say Pek. The CAD began investigations on 15 January 2020; Lim left Singapore the next day, ignored police contact attempts for a year, was arrested in January 2021 in the UAE, and on 9 December 2022 pleaded guilty to 12 charges of cheating and falsification, the first person in the case to be sentenced.

The false statements were the single input banks used to size credit — unaudited documents from the No. 2 or No. 3 person in the company unlocked hundreds of millions.

The supplier subsidiaries receiving the disbursements were partly incorporated or board-controlled by Agritrade's own senior management, so the 'trade' looped back to the borrower.

Sixteen institutions across at least four countries underwrote the same falsified statements without detecting the common source.

When commodity prices fell and the scheme could no longer be serviced, the entire financing structure collapsed into the largest fraud case of its kind.

Trade finance underwrites documents, not goods: when the borrower's own management controls both sides of the paper trail, every bank is lending to the same fiction.

Lim pleaded guilty on 9 December 2022; the prosecution sought 19½ years, arguing Singapore's reputation had been tarnished, and sentencing was set for 17 January 2023. Lim claimed she was manipulated by founder Ng Say Pek and denied personal gain; the prosecution noted her S$400,000 salary before bonuses. Fraud allegations against Ng Xinwei and Ng Say Pek were recorded; Agritrade had collapsed under the price strain.