UK court approves ex-Credit Suisse trader's US extradition

A British court on Monday approved the extradition of a former senior Credit Suisse trader to the United States to face charges over a $540-million (404-million-euro) fraud. Kareem Serageldin, 39, is accused of distorting the value of mortgage securities while working at the Swiss banking giant during the financial crisis. His case will now be passed to Home Secretary Theresa May, the interior minister, who has the final say over extraditions to the United States. Prosecutors claim he conspired with two of his employees to hide the deteriorating condition of the housing market in 2007 in order to keep the value of bonds based on subprime mortgages artificially high and thereby fattening their bonuses. Serageldin, a US citizen living in London who was the bank's global head of structured credit, was slated to receive more than $7.0 million in pay before the company learned about the alleged fraud and withheld $5.2 million of his pay. He was arrested in September last year. The alleged fraud, which prosecutors described last year at Westminister Magistrates Court as "a tale of greed run amok", was said to have contributed to the $2.65 billion write-down that Credit Suisse announced in March 2008. His lawyers did not contest the court's decision on Monday.