Sure, it’s fraud, obvs, but it’s them too:
Chat messages and emails show that senior Trafigura staff were complicit in a scheme to pass off low-value scrap and other metal as valuable nickel, court filings allege.
The privately owned Swiss commodities trading giant is embroiled in a high-profile lawsuit against Prateek Gupta, an Indian businessman, who Trafigura alleges masterminded a huge fraud against the company.
Trafigura in February said it was booking a $577 million charge related to the alleged fraud after discovering that a number of cargos bought from companies linked to Gupta did not contain high-quality, high-value nickel as expected.
Gupta argues that a number of senior Trafigura employees “knew full well that most of the cargos did not contain LME-grade nickel, and that the arrangement to agree contracts between the parties for the sale and purchase of LME-grade nickel but, in fact, to trade other materials was devised and proposed at Trafigura’s instigation”.
Trafigura argues that Gupta’s defence is “flawed and frankly desperate” and that his claims “appear to be nothing more than mudslinging to deflect attention from the fraud he admits to committing against Trafigura”.
No doubt that’d be the simplest way to make the scam work.
But I’m damned if I can tell who’s lying to cast the blame on the other mob.