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Accused British 'Flash Crash' Stock Trader To Be Extradited To The US (zerohedge.com)
Slashdot reader whoever57 writes: Navinder Sarao has lost his appeal and is set to be extradited to the USA, where he faces charges with a possible maximum sentence of 380 years. He is accused of causing the "flash crash" in 2010, when the Dow Jones index dropped by 1000 points.
He ran his trading from his bedroom in his parents' house and it is claimed that he made more than 30 million pounds (approximately $40 million) in five years. His parents had no idea what he was doing, nor the scale of his income. He is accused of placing trades that he never intended to fill, so, to this naive person, it's hard to distinguish what he did from the large high-speed trading firms.
"Lawyers for Mr Sarao tried to argue that the U.S. crime of spoofing had no equivalent under English law, meaning he could not be sent for trial overseas," reports The Telegraph, adding that he's already spent four months in jail because he didn't have enough money to post his own bail.
He ran his trading from his bedroom in his parents' house and it is claimed that he made more than 30 million pounds (approximately $40 million) in five years. His parents had no idea what he was doing, nor the scale of his income. He is accused of placing trades that he never intended to fill, so, to this naive person, it's hard to distinguish what he did from the large high-speed trading firms.
"Lawyers for Mr Sarao tried to argue that the U.S. crime of spoofing had no equivalent under English law, meaning he could not be sent for trial overseas," reports The Telegraph, adding that he's already spent four months in jail because he didn't have enough money to post his own bail.
Wrong, "English law" refers to the legal system of common law in England and Wales (and that is known as English Law) - Scotland has its own legal system (Scots Law), as does Northern Ireland.
Neither the United Kingdom nor Britain has a single legal system.
The quote is perfectly accurate.
C'mon Musk, get that Mars train running so all you fuckwit Yanks can fuck off and leave the rest of us alone.
Although I agree that generally the U.S. does tend to throw its weight around a little too much over the world, this case isn't a good example. The accused here was trading on U.S. markets. He may have been physically located in the U.K. at the time, but his actions took place in the U.S. It is fully appropriate that he stand trial in the U.S.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
He used their millisecond advantage against them.
HFTs front run the orders. He puts up a sell order for 1000 shares of stock X for $1.00
before it can execute N HFTs are putting up sell orders at $0.99
This drives actual sellers to $0.95 where he bought , and canceled his sell @$1.00
The HFTs then are no longer front running and the price moves back up to something around $0.98
at which point he sells.
It's really quite simple - he committed fraud, on a large scale. There's nothing specific to high-frequency trading here, though it was easier for him to fool computer programs that to fool people - humans would have been more likely to notice his that his orders were fraudulent. He could have run the same fraud in 1940, though - he just would have been more likely to get caught sooner.
He would find a stock selling for $1.20. He would then place thousands and thousands of orders saying "I'd like to sell this stock for $1". Of course, nobody would then be offering to buy for $1.20, since he said he was selling for $1. He drove the price down with his sell orders. Then he'd cancel those thousands of sell orders, essentially saying "nope, I was lying, I won't really sell for $1". In the meantime, while the price was down due to his bogus offers to sell, he'd buy at $1.05 or whatever. As soon as it was found out that his thousands of sell orders were bogus, the price would go back up to about $1.20, where it belonged. He had bought a $1.20 stock for $1.05 buying fraudulently offering to sell at $1, thousands of times, with no intention of actually doing so.
I used the term first degree murder. First degree means murder carried out with planning. Killing someone in a fight can mean a less severe crime such as second degree or manslaughter carrying a less severe penalty than a death sentence. The charge is often up to the prosecutors and perhaps the accused is given the option of pleading to a lesser crime than first degree murder. Sometimes the jury may be given a choice of deciding the level of the crime committed and the penalty.
IIRC, in Britain in the past there was no distinction between a planned murder or causing accidental death in an emotional outburst - causing death was murder and there was only one penalty to be carried out in three weeks or so. It thought I read the death penalty was gotten rid of because too many innocent persons were put to death. In the US some folks are being let out of prison after decades in prison because it's found they did not commit the crime they were found guilty of. The Innocence Project estimates 50% of persons convicted of a crime based on eye-witness testimony probably didn't commit the crime. We don't know how many are executed and not later found innocent of a crime.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Once again we see an individual attempting to do something which attracts criminal charges... unless they're in the right club. Do I see any bankers getting charged for any of the criminal dealings that led to all the bank collapses ? No. Unless it's Iceland who seem to a) have balls and b) still actually govern themselves.
And once again we see that the UK is no longer a sovereign country but is simply a fiefdom of the corporate USA oligarchies.
If a UK citizen has committed a crime on UK soil they should be tried in a UK court by a UK judge.
Fuck the American "justice" system where the men with the money make the rules.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
The US can't freeze UK assets. The UK froze his assets at the request of the US? And when that happened to Kim Dotcom, the NZ government allowed Kim access to his funds for the purposes of legal defense. That generally includes posting bail/bond. Why does the UK not recognize the basic right to a legal defense?
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