SINGAPORE - The founder of collapsed Singaporean oil trading firm Hin Leong Trading Pte Ltd was sentenced to 17-1/2 years in prison on Monday for cheating global bank HSBC and abetting forgery, local media reported.

Lim Oon Kuin, known as O.K. Lim, was convicted on two counts of cheating and one of instigating forgery in May. The convictions were over the disbursement by the bank of $111.7 million in March 2020 as payment for two oil sales contracts that prosecutors said were fabricated.

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Lim, 82, has been attending court in a wheelchair but prosecutors said no weight should be given to his age or medical conditions given the gravity of the offences, CNA reported.

Lim's lawyer Davinder Singh could not immediately be contacted for comment.

The HSBC disbursement was for two oil sales contracts the trader purported to have entered into with China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corp Ltd (CAO) and Unipec Singapore Pte Ltd. According to prosecutors, the firms had informed HSBC there were no such agreements.

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Singapore's High Court in March 2021, approved an application to wind up Hin Leong after it failed to restructure about $4 billion in debt following a crash in the oil price during the pandemic.

The firm was set up in 1973 and was owned by Lim and his children Evan Lim and Lim Huey Ching.

Last month, Lim and his children agreed to pay $3.5 billion to Hin Leong's liquidators but said they would be applying for bankruptcy, the Straits Times reported.