Family Of Kewku Adoboli, Suspected UBS Rogue Trader, 'Heartbroken'

ACCRA (Reuters) - The father of a trader accused of losing Swiss banking giant UBS about $2 billion in unauthorized deals said on Thursday he was heartbroken when he heard the news.

Police arrested 31-year-old Kewku Adoboli overnight at UBS's London office on suspicion of fraud after the bank discovered a problem on Wednesday.

John Adoboli, a retired United Nations employee from Ghana, said he knew the financial sector was a high risk area, but he had no doubts about his son's competence and integrity.

"From what the reports are saying, it could be that he made a mistake or wrongful judgment," Adoboli told Reuters, saying he had to speak to Kweku before drawing any conclusions.

"We are all here reading all the materials and all the things being said about him. The family is heartbroken because fraud is not our way of life," he said.

"I brought them up to be God-fearing and to appreciate decency. Growing up and through to school days they were very brilliant and respectful," Adoboli said by phone from the Ghanaian port city of Tema.

The latest rogue trader scandal is an unwelcome blow to a Swiss bank that had started to see client confidence return this year after it was rescued by the Swiss state in 2008 following massive losses on toxic assets.

In 2008 Jerome Kerviel, then a trader at Societe Generale, racked up a $6.7 billion loss in unauthorized deals revealed in 2008. He was sentenced to three years in prison in October 2010.

Adoboli said he heard the "unfortunate" story of Kweku's arrest from a relative earlier on Thursday and has since followed reports on the Internet.

Adoboli, who served as a U.N. staff officer in hot-spots such as Afghanistan, Cambodia and Iraq, said Kweku and his siblings had been "very focused" throughout their lives and careers.

"Kweku was no exception: he carried himself diligently and was made the school prefect at a point in London," he said.

John said he had spoken with Kweku's girlfriend in London, who confirmed his arrest earlier on Thursday.

"I've been calling his phone since and I am hoping he'd be granted bail soon so I can hear his side of the story."

(Editing by David Clarke and Myra MacDonald)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Jen Celli]

04:50 PM on 09/16/2011

This story stinks like a billy goat.

[olafTheAwesome]

06:45 AM on 09/16/2011

The deal only became "unauthorized" because his gamble on currency movements went awry after the Swiss Central Bank unexpectedly devalued the Swiss franc last week. If his gamble had gone the other way, UBS would have been patting him on the back, and he would have earned a huge bonus for his shrewdness.

After Jerome Kerviel cost his employers almost €4bn with his "unauthorized" trades, he told a court-appointed psychologist, his SocGen bosses did nothing more than caution him against taking such huge positions in future; when he eventually cost the bank billions, suddenly he was singled out as acting as a lone wolf.

[News Fan]

09:18 PM on 09/15/2011

UBS and Phil Gramm thought up the dead peasants insurance and security scheme for the retired teachers of TX.

Gramm, UBS and Perry rubbed their greasy little hands thinking about all of the profits they would make upon the death of the retired teachers if they could push their plan through! The quicker the teachers died, the more the trio of death profiteers would make.

Hoping for others to die so you can make a profit is not the way to go! Every decent person in the world already knew that! But the trio of death profiteers didn't see anything wrong with what they wanted to do.

Seems like the bad karma they sowed just descended on UBS to the tune of $2 billion.

All I can say is all's well that ends well! Oh, and it could not have happened to a more deserving corporation!!!

[nopilikia]

10:37 PM on 09/15/2011

Gramm has had his hand in alot of things that only benefited himself and Wall Street banks.

[castlemike]

07:29 PM on 09/15/2011

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-2-billion-ubs-incident-rogue-trader-my-ass-20110915

The $2 Billion UBS Incident: 'Rogue Trader' My A..

In fact, investment bankers by nature have huge appetites for risk, and most of them take pride in being able to sleep at night even when their bets are going the wrong way. If you’re not a person who can doze through a two-hour foot massage while your client (which might be your own bank) is losing ten thousand dollars a minute on some exotic trade you’ve cooked up, then you won’t make it on today’s Wall Street.

[Jen Celli]

04:47 PM on 09/16/2011

Gotta love Matt... he cuts right to it.

[shylove2]

07:20 PM on 09/15/2011

They company they work for of course will not own up to eccouragement of maximizing profits through risky buisiness and then whne it doesn't work out letting a few low hanging bad apples take all the blame... do we really think the company is innocent in these type of cases?

[mjk0259]

08:23 PM on 09/15/2011

Money lost was the companies, at least this time.

[liberal53]

06:58 PM on 09/15/2011

What about our other CEO's running around Wall Street and responsible for our financial debacle & rewarded with generous bonuses.. to this day the Justice Department has not filed any case... wonder if the President's AG is serious about such an investigation....

[imsixftsix]

06:10 PM on 09/15/2011

Execute him

[plaidsportcoat]

05:51 PM on 09/15/2011

What do Jerome Kerviel's parents have to say to this guy's parents?
Did they disown him? Or were they given some awesome presents and generous loans from Sonny Boy?

[pepper1311]

05:16 PM on 09/15/2011

UBS has found there patsy. I wonder if he will be shot when being brought out of the police station.

[eva belle]

05:10 PM on 09/15/2011

Kweku will go down for this. I wish they could be so hard on all the others from the financial crisis.

[Add In Canadia]

04:41 PM on 09/15/2011

No amount of wishing will change 'unauthorized' into 'authorized.' Sides, he would have been completely okay of those 'unauthorized' deals turned up a profit, and would have been given a pat on the back for a job well done. Lose money and well, off to jail you go!

The only difference between this incident and everyone else, was that everyone else was able to hide the money losses so well that it's completely untraceable.

[plaidsportcoat]

05:52 PM on 09/15/2011

This is true and the world sucks.

[treasurefish]

04:39 PM on 09/15/2011

All parents say that when their kids are arrested for some mis-deed! "He was such a good kid, and I raised him the best I could."

[stargazer13]

04:32 PM on 09/15/2011

2 billion all by his lonesome ! really !

come on were not all three years old here !!

[ahornick]

09:42 AM on 09/16/2011

While I don't believe they are really surprised, if he actually slipped 2bn in unauthorized trades under the radar, you can bet that many more unacceptable high risk trades made it also.

Either they just got caught, as a firm, or their risk management is an utter failure. Either way they fail.

[mattw1956]

04:21 PM on 09/15/2011

UBS= CROOKS.