Social networking site joins rogue trader bandwagon
Today, when an individual is, for whatever reason, catapulted into the public eye, one of the first things people do is check Facebook, the social networking website, to try and find out a bit more.
Rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel has achieved cult status with a huge Facebook following
The fact that a €4.9 billion fraud had gone unnoticed for a number of months at France’s second biggest bank, seemingly at the hands of an unremarkable 31-year-old man with a bog-standard trading job, has already captured the public’s imagination.
When the news broke on Thursday, Mr Kerviel’s account on the Facebook website showed he had 11 friends before he was first publicly identified on FT.com — that dwindled to four within a few hours and zero by the end of the day.
But now a quick search under his name on Facebook reveals that he has achieved cult status — as people rush to join the bandwagon, creating dedicated groups and fake profiles attracting hundreds of members.
One of the groups, listed as the “Jérôme Kerviel Fan Club”, displays message posts such as “I love you Jérôme” and “congratulations and good luck... I’m sure you have millions of fans in the world”.
Another person calling himself Jérôme Kerviel has joined the group called “Nick Leeson is an absolute legend society”.
On YouTube, yesterday’s press conference from Societe Generale and clips of news broadcasts on the story are joined by one man outlining his conspiracy theory from the comfort of his living room.
There is also a dedicated website, roguefrenchbanker .com, which features the grainy photograph of a very serious looking Mr Kerviel and claiming to offer “all the facts as they happen”.
What we have seen so far is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. Ewan McGregor immortalised Nick Leeson as the Rogue Trader in 1999. Watch out for Rogue Trader: The Sequel at a cinema near you.
While SocGen said little about Mr Kerviel — initially refusing even to give his name — executives at the 140-year-old bank privately said the former Lumière Lyon University student could have been affected by a family tragedy two years ago. He had also recently broken up with his girlfriend.
With media interest reaching fever pitch worldwide — his name was the 26th most searched term on Google — the bank said it was not sure where Mr Kerviel was. One senior executive suggested he may have been in a fragile state: “I think this guy has gone through a trauma.”
The rogue trader, who joined SocGen in 2000, made €100,000 in his best year, including salary and bonus. He is not regarded as one of the high-fliers.
One SocGen executive trying to explain the havoc caused by Mr Kerviel said: “Once you are in the maelstrom it is probably hard to stop,” adding the trader was like a “mutating virus” in the way he managed to circumvent controls.
“It turns out that this was possible because it happened to be someone who had knowledge of the internal control systems from his earlier career and who is no doubt a computer genius,” said Christian Noyer, governor of Banque de France.
According to a CV, said to be that of Mr Kerviel, which is circulating online, he had been a trader and market maker for Delta One Products, a SocGen business, since 2004. The CV says this involved “open end and closed end Turbos (single stocks, index, forex and rate futures)” and “Exchange Traded Funds”.
The CV also gives his address, just outside Paris, and mobile number, whose voicemail was full.
While reported to have a hacker’s computer skills, the CV only lists “Microsoft Office Package — Visual Basic”. A SocGen spokesman said the career information was “very specifically accurate”.
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