A Jefferies trade finance fund has said it doubts the existence of more than US$1bn in receivables on the books of troubled commodity trader Radiant World, citing what it alleges is the firm’s “very serious, very large and very complicated fraud”.
Jefferies-owned LAM Trade Finance Group II secured a worldwide freezing order against two Radiant World companies, Hong Kong-based company Sapphire Minmetals and their respective founders on August 27, after claiming the companies had falsified invoices and other documents, court documents show.
LAM, alongside other creditors including trading giant Glencore and Japanese lender Mizuho, has accused Radiant World of fabricating invoices, emails and other documentation in order to secure or maintain financing. Radiant World has denied the allegations.
A London court today bolstered the freezing order to require the companies to notify LAM of any payments from their accounts exceeding US$500,000, overruling objections from Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals that the measure would disrupt their commodity trading activity.
Justice Andrew Henshaw found there is a “real risk” Radiant World, its founder Pinkesh Nahar and Sapphire Minmetals have failed to properly disclose their assets.
Radiant World Corporation Pte Ltd, the group’s main Singapore entity, has disclosed current assets of more than US$1bn, the vast bulk of which are trade receivables, according to LAM’s written arguments shared with reporters.
LAM’s lawyer, Simon Salzedo KC, said there is “good reason to doubt whether that figure is accurate” given what he described as growing third-party evidence of “a very large-scale, very sophisticated, very international fraudulent conspiracy”.
Nevertheless, the fund said it needed to have notification of payments in and out of Radiant World’s and Sapphire’s bank accounts in order to ensure the company did not dissipate assets that could be used to pay LAM if it is successful in its fraud claim against the company.
“Whether they still have any such business is very doubtful,” Salzedo said. “In light of the press reports it seems that everybody who did business with them seems to be suing them.”
A lawyer for Sapphire, Matthew Cook KC, said: “My learned friend says he doubts the validity of those [receivables]… if those aren’t real then there’s no problem because there’s no asset at all.”
Requiring Sapphire to hold trades while it notified LAM’s London lawyers about them is “not a realistic way to do commodity trading”, he argued.
Luke Pearce, representing Radiant World, said he had been instructed that the company’s monthly revenue in 2025 was around US$1bn per month, but that had “recently” fallen to between US$400-500mn, generated from approximately 50-70 transactions per month.
Despite that disclosure, the company claims to be running low on funds. In an affidavit filed on September 9, cited in LAM’s written arguments, Radiant World reported having only US$10,000 in cash, down from US$200mn at the end of September 2025.
‘Falsified’ documents
The Jefferies fund, which is reportedly being wound down after taking large bets on collapsed US auto-parts retailer First Brands as well as Radiant World, said in its application for the freezing order that Radiant World began defaulting on repayments in late 2025.
Under receivables financing arrangements, a lender advances money secured by an invoice issued to a buyer. The financing is typically repaid directly by the buyer, which in Radiant World’s case often included top traders such as Vitol and Cargill.
But the fund claims it “gradually uncovered that many of the documents purportedly supporting the unpaid receivables had been falsified, including invoices, contracts, and notices of assignment”, according to an excerpt of its claim.
“It is said that pursuant to the fraud the defendants represented to [LAM] that receivables had been assigned to it when in fact those receivables either did not exist at all or were not validly assigned,” the claim said.
The claim added that some payments made by Radiant World did not relate to the specific receivables financed by LAM.
It alleged the defendants issued “debit notes” to underlying obligors instructing them to make payments to LAM’s account that were the same amount as funds due, but related to “completely different debts”.
Radiant World has yet to file a defence to LAM’s allegations. In response to similar claims this week from Glencore, the company said in a statement it “is confident that, when the facts and the contemporaneous record are examined by the court, its position will be vindicated”.
In late July, the company described the claims against it as “inaccurate and unsubstantiated”, adding: “Radiant World conducts its business to the highest commercial and legal standards and complies with all due diligence requirements with its lending partners”.
In a written submission to the court today, Nahar’s lawyers said the case advanced against him by LAM “is based on nothing more than circumstance and bare assertion”.
Additional reporting by John Basquill.
