Prosecutors behind a sweeping US crackdown on market “spoofing” scored a big win on Friday when former Deutsche Bank traders Cedric Chanu and James Vorley were convicted of fraud for manipulating gold and silver prices.
A federal jury in Chicago, after three days of deliberations, concluded Mr Chanu and Mr Vorley made bogus trade orders between 2008 and 2013 to illegally influence precious metals prices. The week-long trial was the latest US prosecution of a “spoofing” case since the global market “flash crash” in 2010.
Mr Chanu and Mr Vorley engaged in a classic “bait and switch” by placing orders they never intended to execute and then cancelling them, which “weaponised” the forces of supply and demand to mislead other traders, prosecutor Brian Young told jurors in closing arguments on Tuesday.
September 27, 2020