A British man helped to trigger a £500bn US stock market crash by manipulating financial markets on a massive scale from a suburban London semi, US prosecutors have claimed.
Navinder Singh Sarao, 37, is accused of fraudulently making £27 million by using computer programmes to create fake trades on markets linked to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, reports The Telegraph.
US investigators say he was a major contributory factor to the so-called “Flash Crash” of May 6, 2010, when hundreds of billions of dollars was wiped off the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in just five minutes.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have simultaenously charged Navinder Singh Sarao with manipulating the financial markets, alleging he made more than $40m (£26.7m) from his activities over a period spanning more than five years.
Mr Sarao, 37, who ran his own one-man day trading company, was arrested at his parents home in Hounslow, west London, earlier today at the request of American prosecutors.
He now faces extradition to the US after separate criminal and civil charges were filed against him for illegally manipulating the markets.
Neighbours of Mr Sarao in Hounslow, west London, said he was married with two children and lived quietly in a house opposite his parents’ home, where his company Nav Sarao Futures was registered.
His parents, Nachattar Singh Sarao and Darshaw Kaur Sarao, bought the house in 1982 and have lived there ever since. Apart from a well-maintained front garden with a brick wall around it, the pre-war semi is no different from any other in the street.
One neighbour said: “They are a quiet family, they say hello and goodbye, but that’s about it. The parents both work and their son lives opposite with his wife and two daughters. No-one has ever suggested they are wealthy.”
