Second Former Deutsche Bank Trader Gets Sentenced to Prison for Fraud

A second former Deutsche Bank commodities trader was sentenced by a US federal jury to 12 months and a day in prison for a scheme to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution. According to a press release published by the US Department of Justice (DoJ), Cedric Chanu, 42, from France and the United Arab Emirates, received the sentence on Monday, who has been convicted since September 25, 2020.

The investigation unveiled that Chanu, who was employed in Singapore by the financial institution and later in London, engaged in a scheme to defraud other traders on the public exchange, Commodity Exchange Inc.

“The defendant, together with James Vorley and other Deutsche Bank traders, defrauded other market participants through a deceptive trading practice known as ‘spoofing.’ Specifically, Chanu placed fraudulent orders that he did not intend to execute in order to create the false appearance of supply and demand and to induce other traders to transact at prices, quantities, and times that they otherwise would not have traded. Vorley was sentenced on June 21, also to 12 months and a day in prison,” the Department of Justice stated.

In fact, Vorley was in the center of the scheme, placing fraudulent orders that he did not intend to execute. These fake orders created a false appearance of the supply and demand in the market, allowing the Deutsche bank traders to manipulate prices. The FBI’s New York Field Office was in charge of the investigation that led to Chanu’s sentence by a federal jury.

The US Securities and Commission Exchange (SEC) has recently been on an active campaign of rewarding whistleblowers who collaborate with financial-related crimes. Recently, the watchdog awarded around $5.3 million to whistleblowers who have assisted them by providing information regarding enforcement proceedings. Early this year, the tip-off from an insider led the US SEC to bust a financial fraud, which concluded with the return of ‘a large amount of money’ to the victims.