Singapore  - A Singapore court sentenced a former trader of Japanese
company Mitsui Oil to five years in jail on Wednesday for hiding some
81 million US dollars of losses after some of his trading bets went
wrong, media reports said.

Noriyuki Yamazaki, 37, pleaded guilty of falsifying accounts between
April and October 2006. He put in false prices for the petroleum
product naphta, which prevented the head office from finding out the
true scale of his losses.

Yamazaki had believed that the prices would turn and that he would be
able to cover his losses, the online edition of Straits Times newspaper
reported.

Due to the huge losses Mitsui & Co eventually wound down its subsidiary Mitsui Oil (Asia) in February 2007. (dpa)