French rogue trader en route to Facebook stardom
Agence France-Presse
First Posted 23:54:00 01/25/2008
Filed Under: Internet, Banking, Markets & Exchanges, Media
PARIS--He may have disappeared, but the French rogue trader blamed for a five-billion-euro banking fraud has become a cult figure on the Facebook social networking site.
"Jerome Kerviel should be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics" and "Jerome Kerviel FanClub" are the names of two of the seven Facebook groups dedicated to the 31-year-old that Societe Generale bank says lost it a fortune.
These two groups have around 200 members each, but the most popular one -- whose French title is "Those who are looking for Jerome Kerviel, the man worth 4.9 billion!" -- has recruited a thousand fans in just 24 hours.
Facebookers have been rushing to jump on the bandwagon by joining such groups or setting up phony profiles of the seemingly unremarkable young man who has now entered the annals of financial history.
One apparently fake profile of Kerviel, who if convicted will be the first rogue trader to make the headlines in the era of Internet social networking, has just joined a Facebook group called "Nick Leeson is an absolute legend society."
That new member has posted a a message to Leeson, a British rogue trader whose $1.5 billion of failed trading broke Barings Bank in 1995, that says: "Well done dude, but I beat you by cheating 5 billions to my bank!"
The whereabouts of Kerviel, whose photograph has been plastered over newspaper front pages across the globe, were unknown on Friday, although his lawyer told AFP he was "not on the run."
The burgeoning Facebook cult dedicated to Kerviel, described by work colleagues as a shy, hesitant character, is in stark contrast to the trader's dwindling number of friends listed at what appears to be his genuine profile on the site.
That profile, which is a member of the Societe Generale Facebook network that can only be joined by people with a valid e-mail address from the bank, had 11 friends on Thursday but by Friday afternoon had just one.
Kerviel has also become a feature of YouTube, the world's most popular online video-sharing website, where people have posted news reports about his alleged misdeeds as well as spoofs on the fraud.
One YouTube spoof in French, titled "Sorry, Daniel," shows a man with a fearful voice and a paper bag over his head apologizing humbly to the chief executive of Societe Generale, Daniel Bouton.
"I didn't do it on purpose... you're not angry, are you Daniel?" says the hooded man.
Most of the messages posted to the most popular Kerviel Facebook site were either jokey or praising the trader.
"This bloke is my idol! Run, Jerome, run!" said one message.
But the young Frenchman who set up the group said he in no way considered Kerviel as someone worthy of admiration.
"He's a complete anti-hero, I'm not a fan," Etienne Paillard told AFP by telephone from the Irish capital Dublin, where he works at a software company.
"I set up the group in 10 seconds. I wanted my friends to laugh about it. I had no idea the group would be this popular," he said.
Kerviel also now has a website dedicated to him -- www.roguefrenchbanker.com -- that tracks and reproduces news stories about the trader.
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