Former chief financial officer of Agritrade International further charged with cheating financial institutions of US$359 million

SINGAPORE: The former chief financial officer of commodity agency Agritrade International was charged in courtroom on Friday (Nov 26) with 12 more counts for allegedly deceiving seven financial institutions of US$359 million (S$492 million), the police mentioned.Investigations by the Commercial Affairs Department into the corporate discovered that Lulu Lim Beng Kim allegedly cheated the financial institutions into believing that the consolidated financial statements for Agritrade International and its subsidiary firms between 2016 and 2018 have been audited.This was “a fact which she knew to be false”, the police mentioned in a information launch.“By such a way of deception, Lulu Lim had dishonestly induced the seven financial institutions to ship monies by means of credit score services to Agritrade International," added the police.The whole sum concerned within the 12 costs amounted to US$359 million in drawdowns from credit score and mortgage services, the police mentioned.Lim now faces a complete of 14 costs – 13 counts of cheating and one depend of abetting the falsification of accounts. The police mentioned that investigations are ongoing.Lim was first charged in September with cheating and dishonestly inducing a supply of property.The costs relate to Lim “cheating the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, Singapore Branch into believing that 19 bills of lading had been legally and validly pledged in the bank’s favour”, the police mentioned.This resulted within the financial institution disbursing US$19.9 million to a provider of Agritrade International in October 2019. A invoice of lading refers to a doc issued by a provider to acknowledge receipt of cargo for cargo.Each offence of cheating carries a jail time period of as much as 10 years and a high-quality. Anyone convicted of falsifying accounts could be jailed for as much as 10 years, fined, or each.