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Essay
Jeremy @Jeremybtc
A British trader rigged the rate that priced $350 TRILLION in global loans. The fallout cost the banks involved over $9 BILLION in fines.
> LIBOR was the most important number in global finance.
> Every mortgage, every student loan, every credit card rate. All tied to one daily number submitted by a handful of banks.
> Tom Hayes was a derivatives trader at UBS and later Citigroup in Tokyo.
> He figured out that nudging LIBOR by even a fraction of a percent was worth $750,000 to his bottom line.
> So he started messaging brokers at other banks asking them to push the number in his favour.
> He was not subtle. Group chats with messages like “Can we get a high six month today please.”
> His colleagues obliged. Then their colleagues obliged.
> What started as one trader making requests became a global network of bankers at Barclays, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan, Citigroup and RBS all moving the number that controlled the price of money for the entire world.
> $350 TRILLION in financial products tied to a rate traders were adjusting over chat like a fantasy football league.
> He was charged in December 2012 and gave 82 hours of recorded interviews to investigators cooperating fully.
> Then he changed his mind and decided to fight the charges.
> The prosecution played his own recordings back to the jury. In one he said “Well look, I mean, it’s a dishonest scheme, isn’t it?”
> Sentenced to 14 years in 2015. Reduced to 11 on appeal. Served 5 and a half before release.
> In July 2025 the UK Supreme Court unanimously overturned his conviction. The judge had misdirected the jury. The trial was unfair.
> The same court still noted there was “ample evidence” Hayes had conspired. They just said he never got a fair shot at defending himself.
> The banks involved paid over $9 BILLION in combined fines.
The banks paid $9 BILLION. The executives kept their jobs. The trader did the time. The Supreme Court eventually erased that too.
https://x.com/Jeremybtc/status/2048492385093705870
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