Nick Leeson was Barings Bank's star trader on the Singapore International Monetary Exchage (SIMEX). He regularly reported huge profits. In truth though, he was gambling with the bank's money ...

It takes one to know one, as they say. So explains Nick Leeson’s journey from single-handedly crashing one of the world's oldest banks to investigating financial misconduct three decades later.

By 1987 he had moved to a “back office” (that is, support) role at investment bank Morgan Stanley before taking up a similar position at Barings Bank, where one of his duties involved ...