+ Kweku Adoboli was born in Tema, Ghana, in 1980, the son of a United Nations diplomat. After spending time in various countries, he moved to the UK with his family in 1991. He studied at Ackworth School in Yorkshire, then did a degree in e-commerce and digital business studies at the University of Nottingham, graduating in 2003. He then got a job at investment bank UBS, starting in an administrative back-office job before moving to a senior role on the bank’s trading team on the desk dealing with exchange-traded funds. What was the scam? As well as executing client orders, Adoboli’s team was also allowed to risk the bank’s own money on positions. However, Adoboli began making bets that far exceeded his risk limits, exploiting holes in the system to cover up the amount of risk he was taking, as well as the money that he was losing. He booked fictitious trades in the opposite direction to the positions that he was taking, giving the false impression that he was hedged (that is, that the fictitious trades would offset any profits or losses on his real trades).