by Liam Vaughan
flicking through the Swiss newspaper: Markus Stadeli, ‘Mexikanische Grossgrund-besitzer ziehen in die Schweiz’, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 3 November 2013.
Greenberg, who was seventy-five, had been imprisoned: ‘Florida Man Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison for Investment Fraud Conspiracy’, 19 February 2016, www.justice.gov.
according to a complaint filed in Florida: Bank of Mongolia v. M&P Global Financial Services Europe et al, Second Amended Complaint, 31 March 2010.
the complaint alleged that Garcia: IXE and Garcia declined to comment on a detailed list of facts sent to them in advance of publication of Flash Crash, including on the allegations made by the Mongolian Central Bank. Martha Forcucci, a spokesperson for the company, described the facts as ‘tendentious’.
Greenberg and the rest of the defendants: Bank of Mongolia v. M&P Global Financial Services et al., Final Judgment, 23 September 2010.
Malcher also spoke to Edgar Soliz: Ingo Malcher, ‘Bezahlt wurde noch nicht’, Brand Eins, October 2016.
the head of the National Board of Salt Rocks: Ingo Malcher, ‘Bezahlt wurde noch nicht’.
the Wall Street Journal ran a piece: John Letzing, ‘Failure of Swiss Bank Deal Leads to Finger-Pointing and Confusion’, Wall Street Journal, 19 July 2016.
‘Businesses that need money often don’t look hard enough’: Ingo Malcher, ‘Bezahlt wurde noch nicht’.
persuaded the US government to insert an amendment: ‘Order Granting Joint Motion for Entry of an Addendum to the Consent Order of Preliminary Injunction’, CFTC v. Navinder Singh Sarao, 12 December 2015.
But it was a desperate plea: Navinder Sarao v. USA, Approved Judgment, 3 November 2016.
whether he really wanted to be remembered: the 1988 film Rain Man stars Dustin Hoffman as an autistic savant with a photographic memory who is put to work by his brother, played by Tom Cruise, counting cards in a casino.
they agreed on a CMP of two times his gains: ‘Federal Court in Chicago Orders UK Resident Navinder Sarao to Pay More than $38 million in Monetary Sanctions for Prince Manipulation and Spoofing’, 17 November 2016 www.cftc.gov.
He then pleaded guilty to two of the twenty-two counts: ‘Futures Trader Pleads Guilty to Illegally Manipulating the Futures Market in Connection with 2010 “Flash Crash”’, 9 November 2016, www.justice.gov.
For Nav, this exercise resulted in: Court transcripts of Sarao plea hearing, US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division, 9 November 2016.
‘Basically, he has some extraordinary abilities’: Sarao plea hearing transcripts, 9 November 2016.
CHAPTER 25: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
He clicked quickly past a ‘Disclaimer’: IXE Trading PowerPoint presentation, given by Alejandro Garcia on 21 November 2016, and emailed to nonattendees the following day.
according to its own literature: These figures are included in a document titled ‘IXE Group Due Diligence Presentation’ from around 2013. It states, ‘IXE STAR employs over 72,000 people’ and has ‘turnover in excess of USD 5 billion per year’.
‘potential consolidated income of about $86m’: IXE presentation, 21 November 2016.
In terms of actual investments: the four entities listed are IXE I&T, TBZ Farms, Innomarket Pte., and Grupo Agricola IXEQUIN.
The takeaway, Garcia explained: according to the presentation, Sarao was owed a total of £39.5 million, the other investors £17.2 million, and the introducers £8.1 million, for a total of around £65 million, or a little over $80 million.
‘trades executed solely by way of non-speculative transactions’: this language was included in the contracts issued by IXE to investors when they transferred their funds from Morgan Stanley to Arner Bank in 2014.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I’d like to thank my wife, Suzi Vaughan, who walked every step of this journey with me and probably deserves a joint byline. Not only was she a constant source of strength and love but she was also the first person I turned to for advice on questions of reporting and writing, and I am eternally grateful for her grace, patience and impeccable journalistic instincts.
I’d like to thank my editors, Yaniv Soha and Cara Reilly at Doubleday and Tom Killingbeck at William Collins, who elevated the manuscript in countless ways and made the entire process enjoyable and collaborative. Thanks to my agent, Richard Pike at Conville & Walsh, who immediately saw the project’s potential and has been a fantastic advocate ever since; and to Luke Speed at Curtis Brown for working miracles on the film side. Thanks, too, to Katherine Bridle and Simon Gillis at See Saw Films and to Jonny Perera, who have been a pleasure to work with.
A huge thank you to everyone who gave up their time for interviews and contributed to my reporting in other ways. In particular, I’d like to extend my gratitude to Tom Dante, Leif Cid, Mr X and Ingo Malcher for their considerable input; to Robert Friedman for his insight and encouragement; to Nathan Smith for his wise counsel; and to Haim Bodek, who was a fount of knowledge. A special mention to Kit Chellel, who told me what I needed to hear at exactly the right time.
I am indebted to Bloomberg News for giving me the freedom and support to pursue this project. At a time when the news business continues to struggle and the work of journalists is routinely undermined, it is a privilege to work for an organisation where standards are unwavering, employees are valued and ambitious and important stories of all stripes are pursued.
Special thanks to my parents and the rest of the Vaughan and Ring clans for their love and support. And a final word of appreciation for Ellis and John, who introduced me to the wonders of email. It really is a great resource.
About the Author
LIAM VAUGHAN is an investigative journalist for Bloomberg and Bloomberg Businessweek. He has been awarded the Gerald Loeb Prize for excellence in business journalism and the Harold Wincott Prize for financial journalism. He is co-author of The Fix: How Bankers Lied, Cheated and Colluded to Rig the World’s Most Important Number. He lives in London.
Also by Liam Vaughan
The Fix: How Bankers Lied, Cheated and Colluded to Rig the World’s Most Important Number
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