Rogue trader reveals where he hid £30m
‘Hound of Hounslow’ is granted bail
THE British trader dubbed the Hound of Hounslow was finally granted bail yesterday after revealing where he had stashed his £30million fortune.
Navinder Singh Sarao, 37, is accused of causing a £500bill i on Wall Street crash by manipulating the markets from a computer in his bedroom at his parents’ modest West London semi.
He had been granted legal aid after claiming he had no money to fight extradition to the US.
But he has now admitted he has £5million stashed in UK accounts and a further £25mill i on, originally i nvested in Angola, now tied up in a Swiss holding company.
The disclosure broke the deadlock in his case and prosecutors agreed to grant him bail for £2.5million after freezing all his assets. His money must be transferred to an account controlled by both the US authorities and his legal team. But it could take another two years for the full sum to be released, with only the £2.5million bail being transferred in the next few weeks.
The trader can now be released from prison once the bail money is deposited with magistrates in London. He will also lose access to legal aid.
Sarao faces a sentence of up to 380 years in a US jail if convicted of masterminding the 2010 ‘flash crash’ fraud on a Chicago-based stock exchange.
He was arrested i n April, accused of making £27million over five years by flooding the markets with fake buyers and profiting from the subsequent fall in share prices. Regulators claim the Dow Jones index lost 9 per cent of its value before recovering, with Sarao making millions on the back of the slide.
At Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday, the trader stared at the floor as his lawyers finally won his freedom after months of legal wrangling.
Mark Summers, for the US government, said: ‘These are substantial allegations.’ He added that now prosecutors know where the money is, they are happy f or Sarao to be released on bail.
District Judge Quentin Purdy agreed to allow Sarao to access the internet on the grounds he does not carry out any financial transactions. He must also stay within the M25.
Sarao, who denies the claims, is preparing to fight extradition to the US, where he faces 22 charges including wire fraud and commodity manipulation. His lawyers claim he is being made a ‘scapegoat’ for the crash and that he should instead be tried in the UK. A full extradition hearing will begin next month.