London - The British financial trader accused of helping to trigger the 2010 Wall Street “flash crash” lost a legal bid for bail after a High Court judge ruled he posed “a clear flight risk”.
Navinder Singh Sarao, 36, was seeking release from Wandsworth prison as he fights extradition to America.
Sarao was arrested on April 21 at the request of the US authorities, who want him extradited to face allegations that he helped cause the multibillion-dollar US stock market crash from his parents' home 3 500 miles away, in Hounslow, west London.
The US Justice Department claims Sarao and his company, Nav Sarao Futures Limited, made £26m illegally by manipulating the market over a five-year period. He faces 22 charges, including wire fraud, commodities fraud and market manipulation, and a long sentence if convicted.
Lawyers for the trader argued that it was impossible for him to comply with a bail condition imposed at Westminster Magistrate’s Court that he personally pay a £5m security, because US authorities had obtained a worldwide freezing order on his assets.
James Lewis QC, for Sarao, said the trader's parents had offered £50 000 as a surety and were also offering to put up their house as bail. He said it was “manifestly unjust and unlawful” Sarao had been denied bail by conditions that were “unnecessary and impossible to fulfil”.
British-born Sarao went to school in Hounslow and university in London. Lewis said he was from “a very tight-knit and close family”, had lived with his parents all his life and there was no prospect of him risking their life savings by absconding.
But Mark Summers QC, for the US government, opposed bail and said the parents' surety and the value of their house was a “derisory” amount and “small change” compared with the $44m (£28m) of “criminal profit” Sarao allegedly had at his disposal.
He claimed Sarao had no real ties to the UK, had lied to regulators about how he traded, and needed to reveal his worldwide funds to provide reassurance he would not flee.
Justice Cranston refused to vary bail conditions. “There is a clear flight risk” without the £5m security, he said. The £50 000 - compared with the alleged profits Sarao had made - was “no assurance at all”. The jailed trader's solicitor said the Sarao family were “obviously disappointed”. But, he added: “The door has been left slightly ajar for us to come back again.”
The Independent