Five top China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corp (CAO) executives face up to seven years each in prison and maximum fines of S$250,000 ($1.16 million) if convicted on forgery and fraud charges related to the company's collapse late last year.
All five are accused of falsifying company documents and covering up losses totalling US$550 million in the biggest trading scandal to hit Singapore since the 1995 demise of Barings Bank.
Disgraced former chief executive Chen Jiulin and the president of parent company China Aviation Oil Holding, Jia Changbin, are also charged with insider trading. Chen faces 15 separate charges, 13 of which carry a seven-year sentence, while Jia faces three charges, two carrying the same sentence.
Singapore authorities arrested the five on Wednesday, soon after Jia and company director Li Yongji arrived from Beijing to attend a creditors' meeting. As they awaited their fate in jail, creditors approved a restructuring package to save the firm from bankruptcy.
The two countries lack an extradition treaty but Singapore is unlikely to have arrested the president of China's main jet fuel importer without Beijing's tacit approval.
According to a source in the company, Li, Jia and the head of the company's restructuring taskforce Gu Yanfei were released on bail and applied to leave Singapore.
Gu's request was granted and last night she was preparing to leave for the US, where CAO faces a class action suit from a group of shareholders.