Spider Network

In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Liborâe"the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwideâe"was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated administrators, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it fractions of a percent to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that included a prickly French trader nicknamed âeoeGollumâe ; the broker âeoeAbbo,âe who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a nervous Kazakh chicken farmer known as âeoeDerka Derkaâe ; a broker known as âeoeVillageâe (short for âeoeVillage Idiotâe ) who racked up huge expense account bills; an executive called âeoeClumpyâe because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed âeoeBig Noseâe who had once been a semi-professional boxer. This group generated incredible riches âe"until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion. With exclusive access to key characters and evidence, The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but also a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout.