Gracing the Front Page of The Wall Street Journal

A month before the fateful trade, shortly after his wife Lisa's miscarriage, Nick decided to bet everything on the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake.
'It was precisely the moment the market was about to move,' he recalled.

Every financial instrument was looking for a buyer. Nick bought them all at rock-bottom prices. While other traders worried about colleagues and relatives affected by the disaster... Nick half-prayed for the market to rebound, dreaming of pounds pouring in like mountains.
But three days later, a nightmare struck. Nick had no time to 'sell.' The Nikkei (average stock price) plunged over 1,000 points. Nick was shattered.

Then, on February 23, 1995, three weeks after Nick's final gamble. The day before the usual bonus payout. One of his superiors clicked on the fictitious account number 88888. And became rather curious. Or rather, intensely curious... Nick wasn't there. It was the weekend, and he was in Borneo. It was there, in Borneo, that Nick encountered the front page of The Wall Street Journal.

BARINGS BANK COLLAPSES

'I thought someone had messed up. I never imagined it was me. I believed the bank could at least cover my losses. But by then, it had been a month since I'd stopped wanting to see what was happening with account 88888.'

Fugitive, Imprisoned, A Film Deal

The consequences were devastating. The total of the hidden losses was $1.3 billion, almost equivalent to Barings Bank's total assets. The bank had no choice but to declare bankruptcy.

The hunt for the rogue trader began. Scotland Yard launched an investigation, and his face adorned the front pages of every newspaper. Nick, after hiding in Borneo, fled to Bangkok. He then moved through Brunei and Abu Dhabi, only to be arrested at Frankfurt Airport. Sent back to Singapore, Nick faced the possibility of a 14-year prison sentence.

Nick would spend four and a half years in Tanarata Prison, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. His wife, motivated more by money than love, became a flight attendant and visited Nick frequently. But that was before she learned of her husband's nocturnal escapades... A notice freezing his assets marked the end of Nick's reign.

Although he made a fortune from a biographical novel and the subsequent film, in which Ewan McGregor played 'Rogue Trader' ('I don't even have a copy of the film. How embarrassing that it was made into a movie like this!'), that became Nick's sole fortune.
Nick used it to pay off his debts, equivalent to 100,000 euros, and... to treat his colon cancer. Amen!