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Alleged 2010 flash crash trader loses latest appeal against extradition to US

Navinder Singh Sarao will be sent for trial in America

Navinder Singh Sarao, the British trader accused of illicitly making $40m and causing a stock market "flash crash" in 2010, has lost his attempt to appeal against extradition to the US.

Sarao is accused of 22 counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, commodities manipulation and "spoofing" between 2009 and 2014, in addition to allegedly causing the flash crash.

It is alleged that he used bespoke software to allow him to place orders on the market long enough for everyone else's trading algorithms to see the trades and react, but not long enough for the trades to complete – a matter of a millisecond or two.

The trader, who is said to have operated out of a house owned by his parents in Hounslow, west London, was refused permission to appeal by Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Nicol of the High Court in a judgment issued on Thursday.

Sarao's legal team argued that the alleged offences did not qualify as "dual criminality", the legal requirement for Sarao’s conduct to illegal both here and in the US for him to be extradited there; were an abuse of process; and that the extradition was forum-barred, meaning the alleged offences did not have a strong enough link to the US for Sarao to be extradited there to stand trial.

Delivering the judgment, Lord Justice Gross wrote: "The applicant does not come close to satisfying the statutory test. The Forum Bar challenge to extradition accordingly has no reasonable prospect of success."

The abuse of process and dual criminality arguments were also thrown out by the court in a 12-page judgment. (PDF) ®

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