Rogue trader ‘has blown £30m haul’

THE rogue financial trader nicknamed the Hound of Hounslow after causing a trillion-dollar ‘Flash Crash’ has lost his £30million fortune in bad investments, according to reports.

Two years ago Navinder Sarao, 38, was still living in his parents’ house in west London when police swooped in, accusing him of carrying out illegal ‘spoof ’ trades that had caused US stock markets to plummet by around £570billion, or $1trillion, in 2010.

He eventually admitted his crimes – which saw him reap £550,000 in five minutes alone – and in November was ordered by a Chicago court to pay fines of £25.7million.

But yesterday it was reported almost all of Sarao’s ill-gotten gains had disappeared, after he put the money into dubious offshore investment schemes.

One was promoted by a controversial Mexican tycoon Jesus Alejandro Garcia Alvarez, who tried unsuccessfully to take over a Swiss bank using £12million in untraceable gold bars. Another saw Sarao pump millions into an offshore firm proposing to establish windfarms in Scotland. Attempts to withdraw his investments in cash have failed and his inability pay the massive fine is likely to see Sarao handed a longer jail term when he is sentenced later this year.

He is said to face up to 380 years. According to Bloomberg, lawyers working for Sarao have scoured the globe for the money needed, without success.

Attorney Roger Burlingame, told Chicago federal district court that his client’s fortune ‘has been stolen’.

He later suggested that Sarao’s supposed Asperger syndrome left him vulnerable to trickery, adding: ‘He has some extraordinary abilities with respect to pattern recognition and certain sorts of mathematical abilities, but he has some fairly severe social limitations.’

American authorities said he devised computer programs able to make up to seven million separate offers to buy or sell the same share in a single day. This drove prices for the share up or down.