Extradition hearing due for trader accused over US stock market crash

Updated

The extradition hearing is due to take place today for the British financial trader accused of helping trigger a multibillion-dollar US stock market crash.

Navinder Singh Sarao, 36, was granted bail last month while he fights extradition to America.

District judge Quentin Purdy, sitting at Westminster Magistrates' Court, granted his renewed application for bail with a number of conditions.

Sarao, who had been held in custody since his arrest, had to provide a £50,000 surety which the court said had been taken.

The bail conditions also include a ban on travelling outside the M25 and a restriction on using the internet for financial purposes.

The court had been seeking a £5 million surety which Sarao said he was unable to pay.

He was arrested on April 21 at the request of the US authorities, who want him extradited to face allegations that he helped cause the so-called Flash Crash on Wall Street in 2010 from his parents' home 3,500 miles (5,630km) away in Hounslow, west London.

The US Justice Department claims Sarao and his company, Nav Sarao Futures Limited, made £26 million illegally over five years.

The former bank worker and Brunel University student faces 22 charges including wire fraud, commodities fraud and market manipulation, which carry sentences totalling a maximum of 380 years.

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