Mizuho alleges Radiant World fabricated Glencore emails to secure $100M

In early August, a Mizuho banker received what appeared to be confirmation from Glencore that the Swiss commodities giant would repay nearly US$100 million in iron ore receivables. The email came from Mark Francis, Glencore's iron ore operations manager, and arrived just as the banker had requested—copied directly into the chain of correspondence. Within days, Mizuho would discover the email never existed. Glencore had no record of sending it. The five iron ore cargoes that supposedly underpinned the entire transaction had never been sold. What Mizuho believed it had financed was air.

The discovery unraveled a scheme that Mizuho now alleges was orchestrated by Radiant World, a Singapore-based iron ore trader that had grown into one of the world's largest in its field through a rapid expansion fueled largely by receivables financing. On August 5, Radiant World sent an email to Francis asking him to confirm that Glencore would pay the receivables, with a Mizuho banker copied in at the bank's own request. The following morning, Radiant World forwarded the banker an attachment: Francis's purported reply, agreeing to payment. The banker, however, had grown suspicious. He had specifically asked to be included in the correspondence, which meant he should have seen the original exchange in real time. Instead, he received only an attachment after the fact.

When the banker contacted Francis directly to thank him for the confirmation, Francis told him something different: he had never received Radiant World's initial email and had never sent any reply. Mizuho immediately escalated the matter. On August 11, after further investigation, Glencore delivered its verdict to the bank. The five transactions did not exist. The invoices were fabricated. The emails had been "generated fraudulently," according to Glencore's analysis. Mizuho had extended US$95.5 million in loans to Radiant World less than two months earlier, all of it now exposed as unsecured.

The bank filed suit in Singapore's High Court, seeking to place a key operational unit of Radiant World under judicial management. Radiant World's founder, Pinkesh Nahar, has denied the allegations. In an affidavit, he argued that Mizuho's fraud claim rested entirely on Glencore's denial of the trades, and he insisted the transactions were genuine. "Glencore recognised, confirmed to financiers, and paid the receivables over many years," Nahar stated, adding that Radiant does not accept Glencore's position and intends to pursue claims against the commodities trader. Glencore has called Radiant's broader allegations against it "meritless" and accused the trader of deceiving both the company and multiple financial institutions.

Mizuho is not alone. A spreadsheet filed in separate court proceedings shows that Radiant World carries approximately US$870 million in outstanding receivables financing across six lenders. Jefferies Financial Group leads the list, followed by Intesa Sanpaolo. Mizuho's exposure stands at US$97.28 million. Jefferies' Point Bonita trade-finance unit has financed billions of dollars in receivables for both Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals, a closely related trader, including invoices bearing the names of Glencore and Vitol Group. When those companies were asked about the invoices, they denied the documents were genuine. A lawyer for a Jefferies fund has accused Radiant in London court of participating in a "very large-scale fraud."

The dispute has taken on additional dimensions. Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals have sued Glencore for approximately US$2 billion in Singapore, claiming that Glencore acted as a "senior partner" in supporting the rise of its smaller trading rivals. In its statement of claim, Radiant argues that discrepancies between its records and Glencore's do not necessarily prove the trades were fictitious. The company contends that Glencore frequently used oral communications and WhatsApp, and routed some transaction documents through non-standard channels, meaning its formal records may not fully reflect their actual trading arrangements. The case is due back in court on September 23 for a case conference, marking the next phase in what has become a sprawling legal battle over the foundations of one of the world's largest iron ore trading operations.