Kweku Adoboli, the former UBS trader who caused a $2.3bn (£1.8bn) financial loss – the biggest in UK history – has vowed to fight attempts by the Home Office to deport him from the UK to Ghana, his country of birth.
Adoboli, 38, has not lived in Ghana since he was four years old and describes himself as British.
He was freed after serving half of a seven-year sentence for two counts of fraud for abuse of his position at UBS, including one count relating to the unauthorised trading losses. However, he was acquitted of four counts of false accounting.
Since his release from jail in 2015 he has given many talks to students, financial traders and others in the banking industry about how to operate ethically and avoid making the mistakes he made.
“I’ve given talks to about 6,500 people from many different backgrounds about how to learn from failure and how to make decisions in difficult situations,” said Adoboli.
He reports once a month to the Home Office in Livingston in Scotland, where he lives, and fears that he may be arrested in preparation for deportation when he reports there on Monday, after he was denied permission to judicially review the deportation proceedings.
Adoboli has appealed, asking the home secretary, Sajid Javid, not to deport him because of his longstanding ties with the UK and the fact that he is working hard to educate people to avoid making the same mistakes he made at UBS.
“The home secretary is, like me, a former banker. He knows what change we need to deliver in this industry. He should recognise the devastating human cost to me of being deported to Ghana,” Adoboli said.
He added that he believed the hostile environment at the Home Office continued despite reports that the government department has softened its stance in many areas of its immigration policy.
“I believe I’m being used as an example by the Home Office,” said Adoboli.
His solicitor, Jacqueline McKenzie, is hoping to lodge a fresh claim with the Home Office about Adoboli’s case on Monday morning.
She said the case raises wider issues about deportation of offenders who have grown up in the UK and are settled here.
“This is a really unfair situation for Kweku,” she said.
Earlier this week, a court denied him permission for a judicial review of the deportation proceedings, and granted a request by the Home Office to be allowed to deport him even if he renews his application for a review.
“The current challenge is very substantially out of time,” said Lord Justice Lane said in his ruling.
Under British law, foreign nationals who are sentenced to longer than four years in prison are automatically subject to being deported, unless they can argue that there are compelling reasons to allow them to stay in the country.
Adoboli has launched a CrowdJustice campaign to raise funds to help pay his legal bills.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “All foreign nationals who are given a custodial sentence will be considered for removal.
“Foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality by committing crimes in the UK should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them and we have removed more than 42,800 foreign offenders since 2010.”