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🗓️ 26 February 2024
⏱️ 21 minutes
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February 26, 1995. One of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious banks collapses after suffering billion dollar losses on secret investments made by its employee Nick Leeson.
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0:00.0 | There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. |
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0:06.0 | Or you can get all of History Daily, plus other fantastic history podcasts at |
0:10.5 | Into History. |
0:11.6 | com. It's March 2nd 1995 at the Frankfurt International Airport in Germany. |
0:27.0 | 28 year old financial trader Nick Leeson gazes out the window of his plane as it touches down on the runway. |
0:33.0 | This stop in Germany is supposed to be a layover, just a brief stop on the trip from Singapore |
0:38.2 | back to London. But as the plane slowly arrives at the gate, Nick can see a small group of German police |
0:44.4 | officers waiting on the tarmac. He shares an anxious look with his wife Lisa |
0:48.8 | who's sitting beside him. They both know who the police officers are looking for. |
0:54.0 | For the last three years, Nick has been working as a general manager for Bering's bank, |
0:59.0 | overseeing futures trades on behalf of clients in Singapore and Japan. |
1:03.0 | At least that's what Bering's thought Nick was doing. |
1:06.0 | In actuality, Nick was making his own trades, using the bank's money on high risk, high reward bets, |
1:12.0 | and losing millions in the process. |
1:15.0 | Up until now he's been able to hide these losses with accounting tricks, |
1:19.0 | making sure that the higher-ups never caught on to what he was doing. |
1:22.0 | But this year, after accruing the equivalent of over |
1:24.8 | one billion dollars in losses, the bank has finally discovered the operation, and now Nick and |
1:30.0 | his wife are on the run. As the airplane slowly taxis to a stop at the gate, |
1:35.2 | Nick and Lisa don't make any sudden attempt to escape. |
1:38.4 | They simply grab their luggage from the overhead lockers |
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