Brit Trader Returned To Singapore Leeson Placed Under Arrest On 11 Counts Of Forgery, Fraud

The rags-to-riches trader who brought Britain’s oldest bank crashing down with $1.4 billion in bad deals was returned to Singapore on Thursday to face forgery and fraud charges.

Nick Leeson, 28, is accused of forging documents and creating fictitious accounts to hide unauthorized trading while he was manager of Barings PLC’s futures trading branch in Singapore. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 14 years in prison. White-collar crimes are not punishable by flogging.

Leeson had spent the past nine months in a jail in Germany, where he was arrested after fleeing Singapore. He spent much of that time trying to fight extradition to Singapore, fearing he would not be treated fairly, but relented after a Singapore investigation found fault with senior Barings officials, too.

After a 12-1/2-hour Singapore Airlines flight from Frankfurt - which screened the crime movie “Bad Boys” - a smiling Leeson walked out of the airport in the company of gray-suited policemen. He was not handcuffed.

Dressed in a green sweatshirt, a baseball cap turned backward and gray track suit trousers, he did not respond to questions shouted by some of the 100 journalists and TV crew at the Changi Airport.

His wife, Lisa, and his British lawyer, Stephen Pollard, were on the same flight, but they came out of the airport separately.

A grim-faced Lisa Leeson kept silent as a cordon of about a dozen policemen guided her and Pollard up to the taxi line.

“We are not saying anything at this stage,” Pollard said.

From the airport, Leeson was driven to the headquarters of Singapore’s fraud squad, the Commercial Affairs Department, for questioning.

“He was placed under arrest by Commercial Affairs officers on 11 counts of forgery and cheating,” a statement by the white-collar crimes department said.

After detention overnight at the department’s offices, he will be formally charged in court today, the statement said. No plea will be required.

There was no indication when Leeson’s trial would start. He has agreed to help Singapore investigators, and unconfirmed reports say a plea bargain is in the works.

Leeson, the son of a plasterer from Watford, England, made millions of dollars for Barings by betting on the movement of Japan’s stock market. But when the market fell unexpectedly, he kept doubling his bets in hopes of covering his losses - until Barings’ entire cash reserves were wiped out.

Leeson fled Singapore on Feb. 23 as Barings was crumbling under losses of 860 million pounds - then worth $1.38 billion - he amassed. On Feb. 27, the 232-year-old bank was declared bankrupt, and its remnants were later bought by the Dutch banking group ING.

A manhunt was launched across Asia, but Leeson was trying to get home: German officials arrested him March 2 at the Frankfurt airport, where his plane had made a stopover en route to London.

Britain did not demand his extradition, saying the crime was committed in Singapore and he should be tried there.

Singapore, however, was eager to try Leeson because it believed its reputation as a financial hub could be harmed unless errant traders are punished.

Although the maximum sentence he faces is 14 years in prison, he could get off with only one or two years by making a plea bargain, experts say.