Trafigura’s $1.1 Billion Mongolia Fraud Was ‘Humbling,’ CEO Says

Trafigura Group’s $1.1 billion loss in a suspected multi-year fraud in Mongolia was a “humbling experience,” the trading giant’s new chief said in his first public comments on the scandal.

Richard Holtum, who took over as Trafigura chief executive officer in January, said that he was encouraging the company’s traders to speak up if they saw things that did not make sense.

Richard Holtum.

Photographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg

“I think had our people been empowered to ask the question why, maybe we’d have caught this much earlier,” he said at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Trafigura said in October that ...