Kweku Adoboli

Kweku Adoboli
Kweku Adoboli
	Adoboli in September 2011
Born	21 May 1980 (age 40); Tema, Greater Accra Region, Ghana
Nationality	Ghanaian
Education	Ackworth School
Alma mater	University of Nottingham
Occupation	Investment manager; Stock trader;
Known for	2011 UBS rogue trader scandal

Kweku Adoboli (born 21 May 1980) is a Ghanaian investment manager and former stock trader. He was convicted of illegally trading away US$2 billion (GB£1.3 billion) as a trader for Swiss investment bank UBS. While at the bank he primarily worked on UBS' Global Synthetic Equities Trading team in London where he engaged in what would later be known as the 2011 UBS rogue trader scandal. After serving a prison sentence, he lost several appeals against the Home Office decision to deport him to Ghana.[1]

Early life and education

Kweku Adoboli was born on 21 May 1980 in Tema, Ghana, to John Adoboli, a senior United Nations official.[2][3] He spent his early years in Israel, Syria and Iraq,[4] before moving to the United Kingdom in 1991.[5] He attended Ackworth School in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, where he was head boy.[4] In his profile on the school's website, he wrote that he wanted to be an athlete. In 2000, after finishing school, he started reading Chemical Engineering at the University of Nottingham, but switched to E-commerce and Digital Business Studies.[4] In 2000, he was elected as the Communications Officer of University of Nottingham Students' Union.[3] In mid-2002, Adoboli worked as a summer intern at UBS's operations department.[4] He graduated from Nottingham in July 2003.[4]

Career

Adoboli joined UBS's London office as a graduate trainee in September 2006.[2] After working for two years as a trading analyst in the bank's back office, he was promoted to a Delta One trading desk.[4][3][6] In 2008, he became a director on the ETF desk,[4][6] and by 2010, he was promoted to director, with a total annual salary of almost £200,000.[4] Beginning in 2008, Adoboli started using the bank's money for unauthorised trades.[4] He entered false information into UBS's computers to hide the risky trades he was making.[4][6] He exceeded the bank's per-employee daily trading limit of US$100 million, and failed to hedge his trades against risk.[6] He also used his personal funds on two spread betting accounts, IG Index and City Index, where he lost around £100,000.[4] In mid-2011, UBS launched an internal investigation into Adoboli's trades.[4] On 14 September 2011, Adoboli wrote an e-mail to his manager admitting to booking false trades.[4][6] His trades cost the bank $2 billion (£1.3 billion) and wiped off $4.5 billion (£2.7 billion) from its share price.[4] The trading losses he incurred while trading for his bank were the largest unauthorised trading losses in British history.[7]

Charges and conviction

On 15 September 2011, Adoboli was arrested by City of London Police.[8] He was charged with two counts of fraud by abuse of position and four counts of false accounting.[8] He was in prison on remand until 8 June 2012, when he was granted bail subject to being electronically tagged and placed under curfew at a friend's house.[9] On the morning of 20 November 2012, a jury at Southwark Crown Court unanimously found Adoboli guilty on one count of fraud. Later the same day, after receiving an instruction allowing for a majority decision with a single vote against, the jury found him guilty of a second count of fraud. The jury also found him not guilty on the four false accounting charges.[6][7] He was sentenced to seven years in prison.[6] The City of London Police said: "This was the UK's biggest fraud, committed by one of the most sophisticated fraudsters the City of London Police has ever come across."[10]

Imprisonment and subsequent appeal against deportation

Adoboli served out his sentence at HMP The Verne in Dorset, then at HMP Ford in West Sussex and finally at HMP Maidstone in Kent.[7] He was released in June 2015.[11] As he was solely a Ghanaian citizen, having never naturalised as a British citizen despite having lived in the United Kingdom since 1991, Adoboli was liable for automatic deportation under Section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007 as a foreign criminal who had been sentenced to at least twelve months of imprisonment.[12] He was served with deportation proceedings in July 2015, and lived with friends in London and Edinburgh.[13] After his release he gave many talks to students, financial traders and others in the banking industry on operating ethically and avoiding the mistakes he made.[1]

Adoboli lost his original appeal against the Home Secretary's order of deportation made against him in July 2016,[14] and continued to make attempts to appeal; he was eventually denied permission for a judicial review of the deportation order and his deportation was originally scheduled for September 2018. Adoboli believes his deportation is due to the Home Office hostile environment policy on immigration.[1] Officials from the Home Office, however, state that their actions and the underlying decision on an application of a long-standing government policy, supported by the law. Adoboli was deported to his native Ghana on 14 November 2018 after his appeals against deportation were turned down.[15]

References

Diane Taylor (19 August 2018). "Former UBS trader Kweku Adoboli vows to fight deportation". The Observer. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
Walker, Peter; Hirsch, Afua (20 November 2012). "How Kweku Adoboli's gilded life came crashing down". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 August 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Rayner, Gordon; Hough, Andrew; Evans, Martin (16 September 2011). "From Ghana to the City: the rise of a trader who had it all". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 December 2011. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
Dalton, Samantha (20 November 2012). "Kweku Adoboli: From 'rising star' to rogue trader". BBC News. Archived from the original on 10 January 2013. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Sule, Ahmed (20 November 2011). "Kweku Adoboli: Every 'criminal' is Nigerian, African". Business Day. Business Media Ltd. Archived from the original on 16 November 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Walker, Peter (20 September 2012). "UBS trader 'risked the very existence of the bank', court told". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 June 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Fortado, Lindsay (24 June 2015). "Rogue trader Kweku Adoboli out of prison". Financial Times. Pearson PLC. Archived from the original on 25 June 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
Simpson, Emma (20 November 2012). "Kweku Adoboli jailed for fraud over £1.4bn UBS loss". BBC News. Archived from the original on 29 April 2015. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
"UBS 'rogue trader' Kweku Adoboli released on bail in McDonald's car park". The Daily Telegraph. 13 June 2012. Archived from the original on 13 June 2012. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
"Kweku Adoboli jailed for fraud over £1.4bn UBS loss". BBC News. 20 November 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
Ruddick, Graham (24 June 2015). "UBS rogue trader Kweku Adoboli released from prison". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
Boland, Hannah (17 August 2018). "Kweku Adoboli at risk of deportation after judicial review denied". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
Fortado, Linday (11 October 2015). "Rogue trader Kweku Adoboli fights deportation to Ghana". Financial Times. Pearson PLC. Archived from the original on 12 October 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
"Ex-UBS trader loses deportation appeal". BBC News. 20 July 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
"Ex-UBS trader Kweku Adoboli deported". BBC News. 14 November 2018. Retrieved 14 November 2018.