The operative quote here is, “individual traders“:
American prosecutors and European regulators are close to arresting individual traders over the Libor scandal and charging them with colluding to manipulate global benchmark interest rates, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Federal prosecutors in Washington DC have recently contacted lawyers representing some of the individuals under suspicion to notify them that criminal charges and arrests could be imminent, said two sources speaking anonymously.
Defence lawyers representing individuals under suspicion said prosecutors have indicated they will begin making arrests and filing charges in the next few weeks. In long-running financial investigations it is not uncommon for prosecutors to contact defence lawyers for individuals before filing charges to offer them a chance to co-operate or take a plea, the lawyers said.
(emphasis mine)
This is looking a lot like a US military investigation of war crimes. The goal is to prosecute at absolutely the lowest level possible, and come down on the little fish like a ton of bricks.
We know how this works. It’s called “looking forward, not back.”
If any one at the VP level is charged, I predict that they will be non-white, south or east Asian.