Jefferies旗下Point Bonita基金称在近9亿美元Radiant/Sapphire铁矿石贸易融资中发现欺诈文件

A Jefferies-run fund said in court proceedings that it has evidence of alleged fraudulent conduct by iron ore traders Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals in receivables-financing deals with a face value of almost $900 million.

The claim — made in an affidavit by a lawyer for the fund — significantly expands what is known about the scale of the alleged fraud, which Bloomberg has previously reported may be one of the biggest in the commodities industry since Enron Corp.

The $900 million comes on top of about $500 million of Radiant World invoices that other banks and other creditors including Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and Incomlend Pte have in separate legal proceedings alleged were fraudulent.

The companies “fabricated and falsified” legal and financial documents “on an industrial scale,” the Jefferies fund’s lawyer, Christopher Bushell, said in the affidavit. Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals also repeatedly sought to block the fund from approaching their purported customers to confirm that receivables it had financed were real, Bushell alleged.

Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals are part of a group of legally separate but closely connected companies. The companies have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

The fund — a unit of Jefferies’ Point Bonita Capital — is one of several lenders suing iron ore trader Radiant World for alleged fraud. A London court has granted the fund a $499 million freezing order against the global assets of Radiant, Sapphire and their majority owners Pinkesh Nahar and Rakesh Sethi. Bushell’s affidavit was filed in September as part of those proceedings but made public only this week.

Point Bonita’s LAM Trade Finance Group II LLC fund is currently owed more than $610 million under financing deals with Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals, with more than $550 million linked to receivables for purported sales to Glencore Plc and Vitol Group, Bushell said. Both Glencore and Vitol have provided evidence that documents related to the sales had been falsified, and told the fund they don’t have any outstanding obligations to it, he said.

In total, the fund has been provided with evidence that Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals falsified documents for at least 50 receivables, with the nominal value of the transactions totaling nearly $900 million, he said. Point Bonita is Radiant World’s largest single creditor, but Jefferies’ direct exposure is limited, because its own stake in Point Bonita is just 5.9%, according to its most recent quarterly report.

A spokesperson for Radiant World didn’t reply to a request for comment. Sethi, Sapphire’s chairman, didn’t reply to a request for comment. Glencore and Vitol declined to comment. Lawyers for Radiant, Sapphire, and the fund did not reply to requests for comment. Lawyers for the defendants, including Radiant and Nahar, have yet to file their defense.

‘On the Sidelines’

Bushell’s affidavit also claims that lawyers and executives representing Radiant World and Sapphire Minmetals repeatedly sought to prevent Point Bonita from contacting their purported customers as the two companies fell behind on repayments.

Point Bonita had decided to wind down its exposure to both firms as it closed its fund in the wake of another scandal: the blow up of First Brands in the middle of 2025.

When both firms started to miss repayment deadlines in early 2026, the fund started to get in touch with their counterparties, calling Glencore’s general counsel directly in February, while Vitol and Gunvor Group — which this month rebranded as Centalion Group — were also approached, according to the affidavit. A representative for Centalion had no immediate comment.

According to Bushell, Sapphire Minmetals chairman Rakesh Sethi wrote to the fund in March to state that he was “shocked” that Jefferies had approached Glencore, and demanded that the fund “be on the sidelines to solve the crisis created by you.”

Sethi also told the fund its requests to be on calls with supposed buyers of the cargoes was “both unrealistic and inconsistent with established norms across all major participants in this market,” according to the affidavit.

Instead, Radiant and Sapphire showed the fund’s representatives email conversations purportedly with clients like Vitol and Gunvor but declined to provide hard copies, Bushell said.

“Radiant requires that LAM refrain from contacting any of Radiant’s customers directly in respect of any issues affecting the purchased receivables contracts,” a law firm representing Radiant said in a letter in February, according to Bushell.

As negotiations dragged on, the fund signed up to an agreement in early April whereby it wouldn’t contact the end buyers of the cargoes in return for Radiant repaying what was owed by September.

But after two successful payments, Radiant was in default again by the end of the month, with Radiant World founder Nahar implying the delay was due to Glencore being “very upset” that it had been contacted by one of the fund’s lenders, according to the affidavit.

Bloomberg first reported that Jefferies was reviewing its exposure to Radiant World in July, with a person familiar with the matter stating at the time that checks with Radiant World counterparties including Glencore had revealed discrepancies in some of the paperwork underpinning its financing.

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