BP Editors
In the world where millions and billions get thrown around like twinkies, a junior futures trader can lose $5 billion before anyone even notices. Jerome Kerviel was trading at a French bank called Societe Generale in 2007 (and by trading I mean betting on the economy to fail), trading tens of billions at a time, and hiding profits. He would also make fake trades, and then pretend they were accidental, but then replace the trade via another account or device, to be extra sneaky. It turned out that this was easily trackable, and Kerviel was caught in 2008. The French briefly released him, but then charged him with fraud. In 2010 he was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, and restitution of the money he had lost. In a few short years, Kerviel had managed to lose $6.7 billion worth of investors’ money — an amount known to normal people as “more money than God and only slightly less than Warren Buffet.”
