fbpx
Subscribe
Menu

Former UBS Rogue Trader Who Lost $2.3B Deported To Ghana

Former UBS Rogue Trader Who Lost $2.3B Deported To Ghana

Written by Ann Brown

Nov 23, 2018

Subscribe

Ghana-born but British-reared Kweku Adoboli caused a $2.3 billion loss at the bank of UBS, where he was a trader, according to the British courts. Now after years of fighting his conviction Adoboli has been deported back to his native Ghana.

The 38-year-old Adoboli was convicted of two counts of fraud for causing the multibillion-dollar loss at UBS’s London unit. He tried to cover up his bad bets during July and August 2011 amid a market sell-off, and his potential losses reached $12 billion, prosecutors said at his trial, according to BNN Bloomberg reported.

Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 22: Angelica Nwandu

Jamarlin talks to the founder and CEO of The Shade Room, Angelica Nwandu. They discuss how she built a multi-million dollar media platform and her recent moves into films.

Adoboli might have racked up the biggest unauthorized trading loss in British history. His trading violations put the former banker in prison, where he served about half of a seven-year sentence. He was released in 2015. His actions led to the UBS CEO being fired and to the bank making drastic changes to his strategy and system.

The decision to deport Adoboli was a long time coming. He was almost deported in September but his supporters publicized his situation, and a judge decided to review the case. According to the Home Office, Adoboli should be deported under British rules that say foreign nationals sentenced to more than four years in prison can be returned to their country of birth. Adoboli said he wanted to stay in the country where he was raised because he felt more “British” than Ghanaian. He said he wanted to become an advocate for change in the culture of investment banking. He has said that he never personally benefited financially from his crime.

UBS
FILE – This Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2012 file photo shows former trader Kweku Adoboli leaving Southwark Crown Court in London for a lunch break from his trial at the court. A former UBS trader jailed for fraud has warned, Monday Aug. 1, 2016, that former colleagues are at risk of the same behavior because of the pressures to make money. (AP Photo/Sang Tan, File)

 

But in Oct. the same judge dismissed the case. The Home Office kept up the fight to deport Adoboli and ultimately won.

“I have worked really hard for the past seven years – first to right the wrongs, then to help people learn how and why these problems happen,” Adoboli said, according to Wake Up Africa 360. “None of my work has been done to deny or absolve myself of my responsibility. Today’s judgment has been very difficult. It casts aspersions about my character. To be told that the work I do is not in the public interest is very distressing.”

Adoboli hasn’t lived in Ghana since age 4. Though born in Accra, Ghana, to a then-United Nations official, he lived in Israel, Syria, and Iraq. At age 12 Adoboli was sent to a Quaker boarding school in West Yorkshire, England. He went on to attend Nottingham University, where UBS hired him as an intern.

“I am heartbroken, really heartbroken,” Adoboli said.