Ex-Deutsche bank Russia trader accused of stock manipulation

Moscow - Yuri Khilov, while head of Deutsche Bank's Russia equity trading desk, allegedly engaged in "large-scale" market manipulation from 2013 to 2015, using accounts that he opened in his relatives’ names, according to the Russian central bank.

Khilov is accused of booking trades in the name of Deutsche Bank’s London office and then buying and selling stocks for his relatives within minutes, skimming the profit, the Bank of Russia said in a statement on Tuesday.
 
The central bank worked with German financial regulator Bafin on the investigation, and the case has been sent to law enforcement agencies, it said.

Khilov, when reached by phone, declined to comment on the investigation.

The Frankfurt-based lender is grappling with a range of regulatory woes, including US probes into mirror trading from its Russian office, its mortgage-backed securities business and whether its traders colluded to manipulate currency rates.

The Khilov case is unrelated to the mirror trading scandal at Deutsche Bank’s Moscow office, Valeriy Lyakh, the head of the central bank’s market violations monitoring department, told reporters.

In 2015, Deutsche Bank dismissed several employees accused of carrying out up to $10bn of suspicious transactions, and this year closed its banking and securities business in Russia.

Deutsche Bank is being investigated by US and UK authorities over whether its internal controls failed to catch some $10bn in transactions that may have moved money out of Russia, people familiar with the matter have said.

The central bank estimates Khilov and his relatives earned around 255m roubles ($4.1m) in 2013 to 2015 on as much as 300bn roubles in illicit trades, Lyakh said.

The regulator is investigating whether the suspicious operations date back to 2009, he said.