Almost five years ago, a friend of Kweku Adoboli sent him an email about Jérôme Kerviel, the rogue trader who had just lost €4.9bn at French bank, Société Générale.
Sarah Moore told him she saw “interesting parallels” with Adoboli’s life, adding: “Please don’t let me read about you in the papers in the same fashion. It would destroy my faith in human nature for ever.” Her comments proved uncannily prescient.
Nine months later at UBS, Adoboli, who was born in Ghana and educated in England, would embark on a similar path to that taken by Kerviel as he began to make unhedged trades and exposed the bank to huge risks, racking up losses of $2.3bn – the largest unauthorised trading loss in British history.