Metal tycoon sued over missing $577 million in nickel told cargo inspectors he'd had a heart attack, report says

• An Indian tycoon sued over missing nickel cargoes told inspectors he'd had a heart attack, per the FT.
• Trafigura alleges many of Prateek Gupta's shipments didn't contain any nickel and it faces a $577 million loss.

A metal tycoon facing a lawsuit over $577 million in missing nickel told inspectors he'd had a heart attack two days before a cargo was due to be checked, according to a Financial Times report.

Commodities trading giant Trafigura has sued Prateek Gupta and companies associated with him, including TMT Metals and UIL Malaysia. It alleges some of the nickel shipments arranged with the Indian businessman didn't actually contain any of the pricey metal, in what it has described as a systematic fraud.

Court documents reviewed by the FT detail the apparently chaotic events over a 10-day period in November when Trafigura uncovered the alleged multimillion-dollar fraud by Gupta.

Trafigura's head nickel trader, Sokratis Oikonomou, arranged for a physical inspection of the cargoes shipped by Gupta's firms on November 9, the report said. The check came after a request by lender Citi, which had supplied an $850 million line of credit to Trafigura for its transactions.

Just two days before the inspection was due, Gupta sent a WhatsApp message to Oikonomou saying he had had a heart attack, per the FT. The businessman then allegedly attempted to bargain with the nickel trader in a bid to delay the inspection in Rotterdam.

Oikonomou, though, pressed ahead with the inspection. Trafigura has said none of the Rotterdam containers had the the nickel previously agreed in orders, but contained carbon steel instead.

A full container of nickel, typically traded in large volumes, can be worth roughly $500,000. Carbon steel tends to be priced at about 5% of the value of the costlier metal.

Trafigura believes about 1,100 shipping containers were involved in its trades with Gupta, but it can't say for sure what exactly is inside them, the FT report said. By early February, it had checked 156 of the total, and none so far contains nickel — just carbon steel, or other kinds of steel or iron.

In negotiations after Trafigura's discoveries, Gupta is alleged to have tried other means of stalling. He offered a wind farm and steel mill to Trafigura as collateral, and put forward a $200 million repayment plan on a handwritten note to Oikonomou in a meeting at Heathrow Airport.

Gupta was hit with a $625 million freezing order by a London court after Trafigura filed its fraud lawsuit. He told Reuters he intended to challenge the order.

Gupta didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent through TMT Metals' email address.