Germans Collar Fugitive Trader Leeson Expected To Challenge Extradition Back To Singapore
The British trader whose gambles led to the collapse of Britain’s oldest investment bank was several steps ahead of a Singapore arrest warrant and almost home when police caught up with him Thursday.
Nick Leeson was escorted off a flight from Malaysia and detained by German police while authorities waited for an extradition request and arrest warrant accusing him of mishandling money and other charges.
Leeson repeatedly told police he wanted to return to Britain, where his employer, Baring Brothers & Co., was trying to figure out how one man could lose an estimated $1 billion and bring down the 232-year-old bank in a matter of weeks.
In its first comment on the case, Singapore’s fraud squad said Thursday it was investigating a complaint by Baring Futures that the 28-yearold Leeson “committed offenses of forgery.”
It said the Baring complaint was made to police Monday, four days after Leeson and his wife, Lisa Simms, had already fled their luxury condominium in Singapore, leaving laundry drying on the balcony.
The couple drove across the border into Malaysia, where they spent the night, then went on to a ritzy resort in Kota Kinabula, about 900 miles away on the island of Borneo.
Malaysia’s Daily Express newspaper said Leeson went to Royal Brunei Airlines office in Kota Kinabalu on Tuesday, asked for the next available flight to Europe and paid $1,500 cash for the tickets.
Zakri Abdul Rashid, directorgeneral of Malaysia’s Immigration Department, said Leeson’s flight left Wednesday night before immigration authorities could act on a police request to detain him.
He blamed the delay on “timing,” saying the department’s computer system was not connected with all state immigration departments.
Daily Express assistant editor James Sardra said he tried to have the plane stopped in Bangkok, where it made a scheduled stop, but the airport duty manager told him on the phone, “Please don’t ask me to go to the runway and try to stop the plane.”
Police carrying pictures of the couple boarded the plane when it landed in Frankfurt early Thursday. Leeson was taken into custody, but Simms was released and flew to Britain.
The couple’s newly hired lawyer, Eberhard Kempf, said Leeson would probably spend the night in a Frankfurt prison before he was taken before a judge today where he was expected to fight on extradition request.
The lawyer said he had talked to Leeson’s parents. Asked by a reporter if they had been happy that their son had been found, Kempf paused, and answered: “I don’t think so.”
Traders cheered and jeered when news of Leeson’s detention flashed on a giant screen above the floor of Singapore’s futures market.
Frankfurt’s chief prosecutor, Heinz-Hermann Eckart, told a news conference that an international arrest warrant accused Leeson of falsifying a passport and mishandling money. He said the extradition process could take three months.
Singapore had said its request was based on a complaint by the Baring Futures company of Singapore that Leeson “committed offenses of forgery.” The statement did not elaborate.
Leeson is said to have made failed bets on which way the Tokyo stock market would go that cost the bank an estimated $1 billion.
Barings PLC, the bank’s holding company, was put under the control of court-appointed administrators, who are trying to assess what can be salvaged of the institution that had Queen Elizabeth II among its clients.
The Guardian newspaper reported the queen could lose more than $1 million deposited with Barings’ asset management arm. The Prince’s Trust, a charity for young people headed by Prince Charles, could lose $520,000, the newspaper said.