Charges Multiply against Hin Leong Oil Trading Founder

Twenty-five forgery-related charges were levied last year against Lim Oon Kuin, founder of collapsed oil trading firm Hin Leong Trading. On 25 June 2021, another 105 charges linked to cheating and forgery were assessed against the 79-year old accused of being responsible for some USD 2.7 billion in alleged fraudulent loans disbursed. As outlined by Singapore’s The Straits Times, the new charges can be grouped and understood as follows:

• 35 of the new charges relate to Lim allegedly deceiving eight financial institutions into providing USD 1.2b in accounts receivable financing to his trading company for oil supposedly loaded onto certain vessels tied to contracts with BP Singapore and Unipec Singapore;
• 33 of the new charges relate to Lim allegedly duping nine financial institutions into furnishing letters of credit and making a combined USD 1b in payments on the LCs by falsely representing the existence of cargo underlying contracts for oil purchases by Hin Leong from BP Singapore. (According to law enforcement officials, around USD 180m is still outstanding from Hin Leong to certain financial institutions);
• 36 of the new charges relate to Lim allegedly conspiring with a Hin Leong employee to commit forgery by acquiring 36 fake certificates of quality from AmSpec Testing Services, which falsely evidenced that oil samples had been collected and tested;
• One other new charge relates to Lim allegedly conspiring with a company employee to commit forgery of a valuable security by forging a bill of lading, which falsely represented that 501,350 barrels of gasoil had been loaded onto the crude oil tanker Chang Bai San on 13 March 2020.

The initial 25 forgery-related charges lodged against Lim in 2020 involve USD 540m in fraudulent loans being disbursed.

Because the 105 new charges involved additional financial institutions, larger sums disbursed, and greater amounts outstanding, Lim’s SGD 3 million (USD 2.2m) court bail was increased to SGD 4m.