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Seriously...

1. The Low Ball Tapes - Arrested

Seriously...

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.1885 Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2022

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The secret tapes the authorities, on both sides of the Atlantic, wouldn’t want you to hear. Andy Verity, the BBC’s Economics Correspondent has audio recordings, kept secret for years, which reveal evidence that could upend the received version of the biggest scandal since the financial crash. We might have thought that the rate-rigging bankers, ‘the LIBOR manipulators’ were justly jailed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but over 5 episodes, Andy questions the traditional narrative. The Lowball Tapes exposes evidence, much of it kept out of the trials, to show how they were instructed to give a falsely low LIBOR rate, ‘to lowball.’ Outraged, some of the traders turn whistle-blowers; but rather than stopping the deception, the whistle-blowers find themselves pursued. In interviews with convicted traders, including one on the run, Andy hears how it appears blame for manipulating LIBOR was shifted onto junior traders, while those higher up escaped prosecution. Did the world fail to see the truth at the time? We’ve acquired a huge cache of exclusive evidence - recorded phone calls, confidential internal emails and witness statements - which suggest maybe it wasn’t just the market that was rigged. Can he find out who was pulling the strings and where the instructions ultimately came from? Producer: Sarah Bowen Music: Oskar Jones

Transcript

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0:00.0

This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.

0:05.0

The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.

0:09.0

And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.0

The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.

0:12.5

The IRA inmates who found a way.

0:14.5

I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path

0:19.5

through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.

0:25.0

The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.

0:28.5

Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.

0:35.0

BBC Sounds.

0:35.0

BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.

0:40.0

Hi, I'm Andy Verity and this is seriously from BBC Radio 4.

0:45.0

You're listening to the lowball tapes, my investigation into the secret history of interest

0:50.1

rate reading.

0:51.6

In the first episode we speak to three convicted traders, one of them on the run

0:56.4

who say they're not criminals, but victims of a whole series of miscarriages of justice in the

1:01.7

UK and US.

1:03.9

Could the fraudsters be telling the truth?

1:07.8

This is so sick.

1:08.8

Why?

1:09.8

It's so wrong.

1:11.8

Should be higher?

...

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