SINGAPORE: The supervisor of a former Mitsui oil trader convicted of concealing US$81 million (S$118.9 million) of losses from bad trading bets was yesterday jailed for 20 weeks for abetting the scam.

Mitsui & Co, Japan's second- biggest trading house, shut Mitsui Oil Asia (MOA) after the Singapore office raked up the losses in naphtha trading up until Nov 17, 2006.

Takayoshi Wada, 46, had pleaded guilty to three charges of helping his then colleague, Noriyuki Yamazaki, in making false entries in the accounts of MOA. Wada had faced up to seven years' jail as well as fines of up to $10,000.

In delivering the sentence, District Judge Jasvender Kaur said: 'A total sentence of 20 weeks' imprisonment is the appropriate punishment and would have an element of general deterrence to sound as a warning to all others in a similar position of trust.'

Yamazaki was sentenced in February to five years in jail.

Mitsui accounted for about half the trades of naphtha trading in Singapore before it closed its operations in the country. Naphtha is a light-oil product used as a feedstock to make plastics in the petrochemical industry. - REUTERS