Ex-Citigroup currency trader testifies greed helped rig system

Bloomberg

A former Citigroup Inc currency trader told a jury that he plotted with rivals at other banks in chat rooms, on the phone and at social gatherings to rig currency trades while their customers were led to believe they were actually competing with each other.
“The purpose was to try to make more money trading,” Christopher Cummins testified in Manhattan federal court. “I was supposed to be pricing on my own. I was supposed to be competing.”
Cummins, 53, was one of the first traders to admit wrongdoing in a US criminal investigation of price-fixing in the currency markets. He’s testifying for the government in the trial of former JPMorgan Chase & Co trader Akshay Aiyer, who’s charged with taking part in the rigging of African, European and Middle Eastern currencies.
The charges stem from a mutiyear probe by the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Banks have paid more than $10 billion in penalties for currency-market abuse.
Joceyln Sher, Aiyer’s lawyer, said that the government’s case is based on “highly flawed and seriously compromised witnesses” who are implicating Aiyer to win a break from prosecutors. What Aiyer did wasn’t a crime, she argued.
Cummins worked for Citigroup from 1992 until he left in April 2014. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to fix prices in January 2017.