Former UBS rogue trader Kweku Adoboli temporarily spared deportation after intervention from MPs
Former UBS rogue trader Kweku Adoboli has been spared detention and deportation after interventions from his legal team and MPs.
The 38-year-old was convicted on two counts of fraud in 2012 after his unauthorised trading lost the Swiss banking giant £1.8bn – and in 2014 the Home Office issued him with a deportation order on the ground he was a foreign criminal.
A court denied him permission for a judicial review into the deportation last week and Adoboli feared that when he walked into Livingston police station on Monday – where he reports to immigration officials monthly – he would be detained.
But following appeals from MPs to the Home Office, he completed his check in without being detained, giving his lawyers more time to mount an appeal.
Livingston MP Hannah Bardell said she received verbal assurances Adoboli would not be deported until she received a ministerial response.
He said: “There are no words to describe my relief and gratitude. It is a wonderful relief to be home. Thank you everyone. We have to get back to work now.”
He was released from prison in 2015 after serving around half of his seven-year sentence but immediately faced deportation to his country of birth, Ghana.
Since then he has given hundreds of talks to senior managers, policy makers and students in a bid to change the culture in the banking sector.
Speaking to City PM amid his ongoing battle to remain in the country, he said: “You have to go to the top, with what happened at UBS I have always accepted responsibility for my role, but it's a systemic problem.
“I am being held up as a prime example of everything that's wrong with the industry."
He added: “My work is going well but there's still a long way to go, it's going to take a generation.
“It breaks my heart that I might not be able to keep contributing to that change.”