Via ZeroHedge, February 9:
The global nickel trading market is once again in the spotlight.
Having been at the epicenter of a massive short-squeeze that almost shuttered the London Metal Exchange (and remains mired in litigation), Bloomberg reports that the nickel market has been rocked once again as one of the world's largest commodity traders, Trafigura Group, is facing more than half a billion dollars in losses after discovering metal cargoes it bought didn’t contain the metal they were supposed to.
The giant commodity trader has recorded a $577 million impairment as a result of the fraud, and fired the group's head of nickel and cobalt trading, Socrates Economou (though the company made it clear that this was a systematic fraud committed against it by an outsiude party, and does not believe that anyone at the company was complicit in the fraud.).
Trafigura said in a statement that it has started legal action against Indian businessman Prateek Gupta and several companies connected to him including TMT Metals and subsidiaries of UD Trading Group.
“Since late December 2022, a small proportion of the containers purchased from these companies have been inspected as they reached their destination, and were found not to contain nickel,” Trafigura said in the statement.
“The majority of the shipments remain in transit awaiting further inspection.”....
....MORE
Here's the company's statement on the issue:
Geneva, 9 February 2023 – Trafigura recently discovered a systematic fraud committed by a group of companies connected to and apparently controlled by Mr Prateek Gupta including TMT Metals and companies owned by UD Trading Group. Trafigura has commenced legal proceedings against Mr Gupta and the companies involved....
....MUCH MORE
I wonder if they checked behind the couch cushions?
Kidding aside, with $318 billion in revenue and $7 billion in net profit you can see how small even a big problem is.
Our last visit to Trafigura was January 19's "Regarding Trafigura Taking Delivery of LME Copper"
