r/interesting • u/be_you_tiful- • 9d ago

Just Wow Bro cashed out way too much

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A man working from his parents' house in West London made tens of millions of dollars trading futures from a bedroom filled with stuffed toys. His name is Navinder Singh Sarao, and he's on the autism spectrum.

There was no Wall Street trading floor. Sarao worked out of the family home in Hounslow, using a customized trading program on an ordinary desktop computer, and by most accounts he lived a pretty quiet life.

Then came May 6, 2010. In a matter of minutes, US stock markets plunged, and nearly $1 trillion in value briefly vanished before prices bounced back. It became known as the Flash Crash.

Years later, US authorities said Sarao's spoofing helped make it worse. Prosecutors said he placed large sell orders he never intended to fill, then canceled them, which pushed prices down so he could profit from the swings. They said his strategy was running on the day of the crash, and that he made more than $40 million from this kind of trading over several years.

Sarao fought extradition from the UK for years. He eventually pleaded guilty to wire fraud and spoofing in the US. His lawyers pointed to his autism, and the judge sentenced him to time served followed by home confinement rather than more prison time, citing his cooperation with prosecutors.

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u/TheBflyEffect 9d ago

Sentences to home confinement? He didn't sound like he was leaving anyways 🤣

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u/Dugongwong 9d ago

"you can't send me to my room, I'm already in my room!"

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u/aislingplath 8d ago

😅 I'm autistic and my parents spent so much time trying to get me to come OUT of my room. They realized pretty quickly that punishment backfired lol. 

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u/Dugongwong 8d ago

I'm the same but with ADHD. They really found the ultimate punishment though and forced me to sit downstairs on the couch with them, where the only thing allowed on the TV was my mother's soap opera's

The CIA should take notes from them on effective psychological torture.

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u/MissninjaXP 4d ago

I was homeschooled until middle school, so 8 year old me got really invested in The Young and The Restless..... most of them were not very young, however. Guess those old people were the Restless.