Banker’s $3M dip
HSBC honcho in a big bucks ‘scam’
FBI agents arrested a 50year-old HSBC executive at JFK Airport as he was about to board a flight to London — charging him with masterminding a $3.5 billion foreigncurrency scam.
Mark Johnson, the Londonbased global chief of foreign exchange trading at HSBC, jumped ahead of a client’s huge transaction and pocketed $3 million in profit for his bank, prosecutors allege.
HSBC earned another $5 million in fees from the 2011 transaction, it is alleged.
Also charged is Stuart Scott, 43, the head of HSBC’s desk in Europe, who hasn’t been arrested and is still in the UK. HSBC was not charged. The bank’s client was not named in court papers, but sources identified it as oil and gas firm Cairn Energy.
Prosecutors say Johnson and Scott, who are both UK citizens, bought the pound for HSBC’s “proprietary” accounts, holding it there and then selling it for a profit after the transaction went through.
Johnson and Scott lied to Cairn by urging it to execute the transaction earlier in the day to get a better pound-todollar rate — claiming the move would provide it “an element of surprise,” court papers allege.
Cairn took the advice, authorizing the sale of 2.25 bil- lion pounds — or $3.5 billion — at 3 p.m. that day.
“Ohhhh, f--king Christmas,” Johnson said in elation on getting news of the transaction.
Johnson and Scott face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to a three-year investigation into currency rigging at global banks.
Johnson, who was arrested Tuesday night, was released Wednesday on $1 million bail after appearing in Brooklyn federal court. Johnson had to surrender his passport.
“You’re under a microscope,” Judge Lois Bloom warned the dad of six.
Defense lawyer Frank Wohl declined to comment after the brief bail hearing.
In court, Wohl told Bloom that Johnson’s job was in the process of being transferred to the US.
An HSBC spokesman declined to comment.