London: The extradition case involving a London-based Indian-origin lone trader accused of triggering the Wall Street "flash crash" over five years ago opened here today.
Navinder Singh Sarao appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court for a two-day hearing expected to last until Friday to decide if he can be extradited to the US.
American prosecutors allege the 37-year-old made millions of dollars through online trades from his parents' west London home, which amounted to market manipulation and caused a 1,000-point fall on the US Dow Jones index on May 6, 2010.
Sarao faces 22 charges in the US, including fraud charges, which carry sentences totalling a maximum of 380 years.
The charges include "spoofing" - the practice of buying or selling with the intent to cancel the transaction before execution.
He denies all the charges and any wrongdoing and has previously told the court that he was simply "being good at my job".
Prosecutor Mark Summers told the court today: "The (US) government says the defendant placed sell orders for stocks but never intended to sell."
"Sales were cancelled without ever being executed, but the market believed there was a liquid market for stocks he was advertising for sale. The defendant on this day was heavily engaged in his spoofing activities, which contributed to the market imbalance," Summers said.
The US justice department claims that Sarao and his company, Nav Sarao Futures Limited, made USD 878,000 of profit from the flash crash and a total of 26 million pounds illegally over five years.
He was arrested by British police on a US warrant in April 2015 and has been indicted by a US federal grand jury on 22 criminal counts, including wire fraud, commodities fraud, commodity price manipulation and attempted price manipulation.
The former bank worker and Brunel University student, who lives and worked out of his parents' home in Hounslow near Heathrow airport, is accused of using an automated trading program to "spoof" markets.
During the course of hearings in court last year it emerged that he suffers from Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.
The so-called "flash crash" saw the Dow Jones industrial average briefly plunge more than 1,000 points on May 6, 2010, temporarily wiping out nearly 1 trillion dollars in market value.
Sarao has already spent four months in prison last year after failing to meet 5-million-pound bail terms because his assets had been frozen.
He was freed in September last year after US authorities agreed he could be released on bail of 50,000 pounds.
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