Three former executives at Transmar Commodity Group Ltd have been charged with defrauding banks to win a $400 million credit line for their now bankrupt New Jersey-based cocoa trading company, federal prosecutors said yesterday, Reuters reported. Peter G. Johnson, who was Transmar's chief executive; his son Peter B. Johnson, who oversaw Transmar's Euromar Commodities affiliate; and Thomas Reich, the former finance vice president, were each charged with bank fraud, wire fraud affecting a financial institution and conspiracy to commit fraud. Transmar, a Morristown, New Jersey-based unit of Transmar Group Ltd, had sold cocoa products to chocolate makers such as Hershey Co and Nestle SA prior to filing for chapter 11 protection last Dec. 31. Prosecutors accused the defendants of "lying repeatedly" from 2014 to December 2016 by giving banks false "borrowing base" reports that inflated the amount of collateral Transmar had to support its borrowings. Transmar owed the banks roughly $360 million at the time of the bankruptcy, prosecutors said.
