Between 2013 and 2015, some of the world’s biggest banks were caught secretly manipulating the foreign exchange market, the largest financial market in the world.
A group of top bank traders set up private chat rooms with names like “The Cartel” and “The Mafia.” Inside these exclusive groups, they shared confidential client order information, joked with each other, and carefully planned their moves.
The scheme worked like this: at certain times of the day, known as fixing times, currency exchange rates are set based on current trading activity. These benchmarks are used globally to price contracts, manage portfolios, and settle huge financial deals.
The traders coordinated their buying and selling just before the fix to nudge the market in the direction they wanted.
By doing this, they could push prices up or down artificially. That meant ordinary traders, funds, and companies ended up with worse exchange rates, while the banks pocketed billions in profits.
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