Ananthakrishnan Nanda, the former managing director of Sinochem’s Aoxing Ship Management, has been charged in a Singapore court this week with 21 counts of obtaining, or attempting to obtain, payments from various vendors amounting to around S$364,400 ($263,500).
In addition to his role at Aoxing Ship Management, Nanda was managing director of the shipping management department in Sinochem Shipping Singapore, director of Master Manning Services & Logistics and director of Sakura Ship Management.
Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau says that gratification was paid to advance the business interests of the vendors with Aoxing, with around S$317,600 of the bribes credited into Master Manning Services & Logistics’s bank account, which Nanda was in control of.
Nanda has also been charged with one count of criminal breach of trust by dishonestly misappropriating approximately S$81,600 of funds in Sinochem’s and Aoxing’s bank accounts entrusted to him, and one count of transferring approximately S$71,300 from Master Manning Services & Logistics’s bank account to Sakura Ship Management’s bank account.
Aoxing Ship Management was established in China in 2003, and Nanda was tasked with opening the company’s Singapore office in 2016. “The motive force for establishing a new office in Singapore is part of the company’s first move towards internationalization,” Nanda told Splash at the time. He parted ways with Sinochem in December 2017.
