HSBC banker who rigged £2.7billion currency deal is jailed in US for two years

• Mark Johnson was sentenced to two years in prison in New York on Friday 
• He is the former head of HSBC’s foreign exchange cash trading
• Prosecutors say the 51-year-old manipulated the foreign exchange market

A UK banker was jailed in the US yesterday for rigging a £2.7billion currency deal.

Mark Johnson, the former head of HSBC’s foreign exchange cash trading, was sentenced to two years in prison in New York for defrauding a client.

Prosecutors say the 51-year-old and co-defendant Stuart Scott, who is fighting extradition to the US, manipulated the foreign exchange market.

Mark Johnson, the former head of HSBC’s foreign exchange cash trading, was sentenced to two years in prison in New York for defrauding a client

Father-of-six Johnson, of the New Forest in Hampshire, had been hired by Cairn Energy in 2011 to convert $3.5billion (£2.7billion) into sterling as part of the sale of a subsidiary.

But prosecutors said Johnson and Scott devised a scheme to drive up the price of pounds before carrying out the deal.

They said that the men generated more than $7million (£5.5million) from the transaction, some of it illegally. Johnson was said to have greeted the news with the words: ‘Oh, f***ing Christmas!’

Johnson, who was sentenced at Brooklyn federal court after being convicted of wire-fraud conspiracy and wire fraud in October, was arrested last year as he was about to board a flight from New York’s JFK airport to London.

In his trial, Johnson insisted the client got a ‘fair’ price. He was also ordered to pay a fine of £215,000. HSBC was not accused of any wrongdoing. 

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