The rogues gallery
THE traders who did dodgy deals and left huge losses in their wake.
NICK LEESON:
THE original rogue trader ran up losses of £850m in Singapore in 1995 and went on the run with his then wife Lisa. The story swept round the world as the pair were hunted all over the Far East while blue-blooded British merchant bank Barings collapsed.
Leeson, now 35, was jailed for six years in Singapore's Tanah Merah but released in 1999 after being diagnosed with colon cancer. He returned to Britain, repeatedly denying claims he had secreted a £2m 'pot of gold'. He is now studying psychology at Middlesex University. Last year he told a business forum: 'The chances of this kind of fraud happening again are absolutely zero.'
PETER YOUNG:
THE former high flyer in the City offices of Deutsche Morgan Grenfell cost his employers £300m after embarking on a series of rogue investments outside his official remit. The scale of the scandal in 1996 shocked the City. An Oxford maths graduate, Young was declared unfit to stand trial after attending trial dressed as a woman. The court heard evidence of attempts to castrate himself. He is now receiving professional care.
YASUO HAMANAKA:
THE biggest single rogue trader loss was produced by this Wall Street futures trader. He carried out illegal deals and concealed them for almost a decade at Sumitomo Copper, which eventually lost $2.6bn. He was dismissed in 1996 and in 1998 he was jailed for eight years after pleading guilty to charges of fraud and forgery. The Japanese company paid $133m in fines to US regulators.
STEPHEN HUMPHRIES:
THE London-based Sussex Futures trader was jailed for three years and nine months in 2000 after a single afternoon of fraudulent trading. Humphries lied about his trading positions as he made spiralling losses on gilt futures contracts - essentially bets on the future direction of interest rates. He racked up losses of £750,000 in less than two hours and then fled the building. The company later went bust.
