Chats by metals trader reveal price manipulation through spoofing

Washington

DAVID Liew was a quick study. Less than a year into his metals-trading job at Deutsche Bank in Singapore, he joked with a colleague about their latest win. "Tricks from the . . . master," Liew typed in a chat after working with a colleague to move gold futures prices while Liew executed a trade. In the course of a year, Liew and his colleagues used fake orders to try to manipulate prices, an illegal practice called spoofing, more than 50 times.

After pleading guilty to fraud charges last week and agreeing to cooperate, Liew has become a prime government witness for US prosecutors investigating whether traders at the world's biggest banks conspired to manipulate prices in silver, gold, platinum and palladium. His chats with colleagues - part of an FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) affidavit filed in Chicago and placed under seal - provide a window into the investigation by the Justice Department, which began looking into such activities at a dozen of the biggest global banks two years ago.