Jérôme Kerviel
"[9] In 2001, at the suggestion of Thierry Mavic, the mayor of Pont l'Abbé, Kerviel stood for a seat on the local council with the Union for a Popular Movement but was not elected.[10] Kerviel joined the middle office of the bank Société Générale (SocGen) in the summer of 2000,[2] working in its compliance department.SocGen claimed Kerviel "had taken massive fraudulent directional positions in 2007 and 2008 far beyond his limited authority"[19] and that the trades involved European stock index futures.[12] Experts have expressed skepticism of SocGen's account, saying that a pattern of closing out trades within the three-day cycle alleged could not be accomplished given the immense sums involved.He told authorities that the bank was happy with his previous year's performance, and was expecting to be paid a €300,000 bonus on a €60 million declared profit (approximately 0.5%).[24] Around 25 January 2008, police raided the Paris headquarters of SocGen and Kerviel's apartment in the western suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine[10] to seize his computer files.[21] The investigation later widened to encompass his personal cell phone records, and to explore possible links to other individuals working at rival banks and private investment firms who may have been involved.Police were interested whether others were involved, either in the trades themselves, or whether they received notice of the bank's impending sell-off before the details of the scandal were publicly disclosed.On 29 January 2008 investigating judges Renaud van Ruymbeke and Françoise Desset had rejected prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin's bid to charge Kerviel with the more serious crime of "attempted fraud" and refuse bail.[38] While awaiting a ruling on his legal appeal and still protesting SocGen's stance in his case, Kerviel met with Pope Francis outside the Vatican on 19 February 2014, and undertook a pilgrimage from Rome to Paris against the "tyranny of the markets".