After a week on the lam, the young trader blamed for destroying Britain's oldest investment bank was taken into custody Thursday by German police who said he was heading to London.
Nicholas Leeson, a 28-year-old Briton who reportedly made millions trading Japanese futures, was wearing jeans and carrying a backpack, book and baseball cap when police escorted him and his wife, Lisa Simms, off a flight from Malaysia.Leeson told German police he wanted to go to Britain, where his employer, Baring Brothers & Co., was trying to sort out how one man could have brought down the 232-year-old bank in a matter of weeks.
The government of Singapore requested Leeson's extradition, saying he had committed fraud while working as chief trader for Barings' office there.
Traders cheered and jeered when news of Leeson's detention flashed on a giant screen above the floor of Singapore's futures market.
Leeson and his wife disappeared from their luxury condo in Singapore on Feb. 23 as word of the trading losses became known. They checked into a hotel in Kuala Lumpur that night but left 12 hours later.
The trail went cold until police at Frankfurt airport escorted the couple off the overnight Royal Brunei Airlines flight from the Malaysian resort of Kota Kinabalu, on Borneo 1,500 miles northeast of Singapore.
The airport police director, Klaus Severin, said police heard through the media that Leeson was flying to Frankfurt.
Police carrying pictures of the Leesons boarded the plane and escorted the couple to the terminal.
Severin said he did not know why they had chosen to fly to Frankfurt, but The Daily Express in Malaysia reported Thursday that Leeson went to the airline office in Kota Kinabalu on Tuesday, asked for the next available flight to Europe and paid $1,500 in cash for the tickets.
"We have not asked him any questions, but I understand he wanted to go on to England," Sev-erin said.
The Leesons were being held in Frankfurt on a local warrant faxed from Singapore while German authorities awaited an international arrest warrant.
The warrant listed no charges, but a statement from Singapore's fraud squad said its extradition request was based on a complaint by the Baring Futures company of Singapore that Leeson "committed offenses of forgery."
Germany's ambassador to Singapore, Karl Spalcke, said extradition wouldn't be immediate because such procedures could take two months.
Leeson appeared calm and composed but ignored questions from reporters at the airport terminal.
Leeson is said to have made failed bets on the Tokyo stock market that cost the bank an estimated $1 billion.
In London Thursday, The Guardian newspaper reported Queen Elizabeth II could lose more than $1 million deposited with Barings' asset management arm.
The Prince's Trust, a charity for young people headed by Prince Charles, could lose $520,000, the newspaper said.