Largest fraud by a rogue trader

On 24 January 2008, a major French bank, Société Générale (SocGen), issued a statement declaring that it had uncovered a fraud, which had resulted in losses totalling €4.9 billion ($7.16 billion; £3.6 billion). Later that day, a second statement announced SocGen had filed a formal complaint with the police against the trader involved based on charges of fraudulent falsification of bank records, fraudulent use of such records and computer fraud. On 26 January, bank trader, Jerome Kerviel (France), was taken into police custody and later admitted hiding his activities from his superiors. A few days later he was released under judicial supervision pending further investigations. If his role in the bank’s losses is later confirmed, he will have caused the greatest rogue trading loss ever sustained by a bank. In October 2010, Kerviel was found guilty of breach of trust, computer abuse and forgery, and sentenced to five years in prison, with two years suspended. In May 2010, he published an autobiography entitled Downward spiral: Memoirs of a Trader in which he claimed that his employers were aware of his trading activity, and that such behaviour was common. He appealed his sentence, but in October 2012 a Paris appeals court upheld the decision, adding that he should reimburse Societe Generale for 4.9 billion euros. The fine was later (March 2014) withdrawn by the French High Court.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/05/us-socgen-kerviel-verdict-idUSTRE69414220101005