British HSBC banker arrested at JFK airport over £2.7billion exchange rate scam

A top British banker arrested at JFK airport allegedly yelled: 'Ohhh f*****g Christmas' as he and a colleague made a £6million profit from a £2.7billion currency scam.

HSBC executive Mark Johnson, 50, who splits his time between London and New York, was held by federal agents as he tried to board a UK-bound flight and thrown in a Brooklyn jail.

He was released later after paying his $1million bail, using $300,000 in cash and the rest tied up in the mortgage of his £1.8million UK mansion in Hampshire.

Prosecutors say he and a colleague made a £6million profit by rigging the market at the expense of a client. Johnson, who heads his bank's foreign cash team, is said to have hailed the deal with the words: 'Ohhh f****** Christmas.'

And he allegedly wrote a message to his co-accused Stuart Scott, 43, which read: 'Seems they're starting to bite.' The pair are said to have messaged each other to discuss how they could 'ramp up' the price of sterling.

The alleged fraud occurred in November and December 2011, when Johnson and Scott 'misused' information provided to them by an unnamed client paying HSBC to convert $3.5billion to pounds sterling.

The US Justice Department claims the deal was 'executed in a manner designed to cause the price of sterling to spike to the benefit of HSBC and the defendants, and at the expense of the victim company'.

Mr Johnson was arrested at the JFK International Airport in Queens, New York, the US Justice Department said.

He has been released on 1 million dollar bail and will face a court appearance on before magistrate judge Lois Bloom of the Eastern District of New York.

Johnson is understood to be renting an apartment in an Art Deco block building overlooking Central Park, which contains a roof terrace, doctor's surgery and a pet spa.

Before his arrest he was in the process of moving to New York permanently with his wife and six children after being transferred by HSBC, his lawyer said.

HSBC was not tipped off about Johnson's arrest. The US authorities are understood to have moved quickly to avoid having to deal with an extradition process.

Scott, who no longer works for the bank, was not detained in the US, and has been charged in absentia. An arrest warrant has been issued.

He was HSBC's top currency trader in Europe but was fired in December 2014 in the wake of the conspiracy to manipulate the £3trillion a day foreign exchange market.

The High Street giant has dismissed Stuart Scott a month after it was fined £390million by UK and US regulators over the scandal.