Name: Jerome Kerviel
What He Did: Arrested in Paris in 2008 for making unauthorized and unhedged bets that cost Société Généralé over $6 billion
How He Was Punished: Sentenced to three years in prison in 2010, nominally ordered to pay bank back in full for the prepostrously large sum of money he lost, banned from financial industry for life
What He's Doing Now: After his arrest, Kerviel joined the computer consulting firm Lemaire Consultants & Associates, which has ties to Kerviel's lawyer, and wrote a book, Trapped in a Spiral: Memoirs of a Trader. In his most recent interview in October, Kerviel, who is appealing the 2010 verdict, reiterated to the AP that he wasn't the only trader at the bank making risky bets and that his bosses condoned his behavior. At the time of the article, he was making $1,245 a month as a computer consultant.
Name: John Rusnak
What He Did: Arrested in 2002 for faking trades and even posing as a fictitious trader to hide $700 million in losses from unauthorized trades of Japanese yen while working in Baltimore for then-Irish Allied Banks subsidiary Allfirst Financial, which was sold soon after the scandal
How He Was Punished: Sentenced to over seven years in prison in Ohio, ordered to pay $1,000 a month for five years after his release
What He's Doing Now: It's a mystery. According to The New York Times, Rusnak was "released from federal prison last year and has remained out of the headlines since then."
Name: Yasuo Hamanaka (aka "Mr. Copper" or "Mr. Five Percent" for the amount of the global copper market he was estimated to control)
What He Did: Arrested in 1996 for fraud and forgery in the copper market, which cost Japan's Sumitomo Corporation $2.6 billion and sent copper prices tumbling worldwide
How He Was Punished: Sentenced to eight years in prison but released one year early
What He's Doing Now: Hamanaka hasn't spoken to the press in years, but he did tell Bloomberg upon his release in 2005 that he was "amazed" at how the price of copper had risen while he was in jail (once Mr. Copper, always Mr. Copper). Hamanaka, who lives in the Tokyo suburb of Kawasaki, said he planned to start working again in a matter of months but wouldn't say whether he intended to return to copper trading. When The Wall Street Journal approached his small house in 2008, Hamanaka's wife shooed the reporter away. "There's nothing to talk about," she said from the door.
Name: Nick Leeson
What He Did: Arrested in 1995 while trying to flee to the U.K. from his office in Singapore after covering up losses on deritaves bets by setting up fake accounts for imaginary clients, resulting in a loss of $1.3 billion for Barings Bank--a blow that singlehandedly brought down a 233-year-old financial institution that had counted the Queen among its clients (liquidators auctioned off Leeson's trading jacket for nearly $42,000 to help pay back creditors)