Glencore says Radiant World sent banks falsified invoices in its name

Glencore said Tuesday it had confirmed evidence that Radiant World, Sapphire Minmetals and associated companies sent financial institutions falsified invoices and contracts, plus emails they fraudulently claimed to have received from Glencore staff. That is the miner and trader speaking in its own name, not a lender’s court paper: the documents some banks financed against as Glencore receivables were, Glencore says, never genuine. The statement, posted from Baar, Switzerland, is the first time Glencore has confirmed the forgeries, and the first time it has said it has “exited all obligations” after stopping new business.

The disputed invoices now sit with the trade-finance desks and funds that bought them. Those counterparties have begun to provision and to sue; the claims are still before the courts. Glencore, which has itself booked losses on the relationship, repeated that the exposure on its books is not material and, after provisions already booked, is well below its $500 million threshold. A late-August report, citing people familiar with the matter, put the provision at about $480 million, just under that line. Glencore has not confirmed the figure.

For a US-listed fund holder, Glencore is a mid-single-digit line in metals wrappers, not a concentrated bet on the trader: 5.0% of copper-mining stocks in Global X Copper Miners CCOPX, 4.6% of global metals and mining producers in iShares MSCI Global Metals & Mining Producers CPICK. Tuesday’s confirmation does not change that weight.

The mechanism is old even if this confirmation is new. A trade-finance lender buys a receivable: an invoice that, on its face, says Glencore owes the trader for a cargo. The lender is underwriting Glencore’s credit, not the trader’s. That is the point of the product. Paper with Glencore as the debtor prices off Glencore; paper with a mid-sized Singapore iron-ore trader as the debtor does not. If the invoice has already been paid, the contract is fake, or the email trail was manufactured, that security is a PDF. In the filings that have surfaced, the check with Glencore came after the money had gone out.

The lenders that financed against Glencore paper

The largest disclosed book is at a Jefferies-linked vehicle. LAM Trade Finance Group II, a fund managed by a Jefferies unit in which Jefferies holds a minority stake, has sued Radiant World and founder Pinkesh Nahar in London. The UK claim is valued at more than $500 million, and reporting has put the fund’s exposure at nearly $500 million. A London High Court worldwide freezing order, reported at up to $499 million, restricts the defendants from dealing with assets globally. A Singapore High Court injunction obtained to enforce that order locally caps disposal of assets in Singapore at $499.2 million, including balances at several banks. The London order has also capped Nahar’s living expenses at £4,000 a week.

Intesa Sanpaolo is the one major lender to have described its own books. In late July the bank said it had provisioned an exposure of €200 million ($230 million) and that the position was largely covered, with no effect on 2026 net profit.

Mizuho alleged in a Singapore filing that Radiant World fabricated email correspondence with Glencore to keep the bank from demanding repayment. The bank’s exposure, the filing showed, was $95.5 million from five iron-ore receivables purchased in June, which Mizuho believed Glencore would repay. After reports in July that major houses had cut ties, Radiant World copied Mizuho on an email to Glencore seeking payment confirmation; Glencore later told the bank those emails “were generated fraudulently.” A further hearing on Mizuho’s judicial-management application is set for September 23. Deutsche Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo and KBC are listed as parties to that application.

Incomlend, a Singapore invoice-finance platform, alleged in High Court papers that it advanced $31.7 million in May against two invoices Radiant World presented as unpaid amounts due from Glencore International AG, with a combined face value of more than $34 million. When Incomlend went to Glencore in August, Glencore said the invoices had already been paid and the underlying contracts were not genuine, the filing said. Incomlend is seeking just over $34 million, including damages. Radiant World had not filed a defence as of early September; the next hearing is October 13.

Radiant World has called the claims “inaccurate and unsubstantiated” and said it “conducts its business to the highest commercial and legal standards.” Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals have alleged substantial claims against Glencore; the company called those claims “meritless” and said it will contest them vigorously. Chief executive Gary Nagle has said Glencore treats Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals as one relationship because of similar shareholdings and management. Sapphire’s chairman, Rakesh Sethi, has called that “totally wrong” and said there is a “totally separate board.”

Singapore police said in August they were looking into the trader after reports were lodged; they have not brought charges.

What Singapore changed after Hin Leong and Agritrade

Singapore has seen this pattern. Hin Leong’s founder admitted in a 2020 court filing that the oil trader had hidden about $800 million of futures losses; Agritrade’s fraud was later put at nearly $470 million of bank losses on the charges brought, built on falsified accounts and documents shown to lenders.

What followed was a registry, not a requirement to confirm the named debtor. The Association of Banks in Singapore launched a Trade Finance Registry in June 2023, with the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s backing, so a bank can check whether another Singapore lender has already financed the same trade. In February 2025 the registry added a real-time check that a bill of lading matches what the shipping line issued. Neither tool asks the named buyer whether the invoice is still unpaid. The Radiant World filings describe invoices already paid, contracts that were not genuine, and emails Glencore says were fabricated.

Glencore’s review of its historic dealings has no public deadline. The near calendar belongs to the lenders: Mizuho on September 23, Incomlend on October 13, and a freezing order already in force on Radiant World’s assets. Glencore has moved the argument from whether its own exposure is material to a simpler claim, that the paper was never its paper. The banks still have to collect.