A former Credit Suisse managing director extradited from the United Kingdom earlier this month to face charges he fraudulently inflated the prices of mortgage-related investments has pleaded guilty to conspiring to falsify his company’s books and records.
Kareem Serageldin, the former global head of structured credit in Credit Suisse’s investment banking division, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, according to Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Serageldin faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of the greater of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense. He is set to be sentenced before Judge Hellerstein Aug. 2.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s securities and commodities fraud task force is handling the case. Assistant U.S. attorney Eugene Ingoglia is in charge of the prosecution.
The office brought the case in coordination with
The manipulation of the investment prices by Seragaldin and other co-conspirators contributed to Credit Suisse taking a $2.65 billion writedown of its 2007 yearend financial result.
About $540 million of the writedown was related to co-conspirators’ manipulation of a trading book comprised primarily of several thousand individual long and short positions and other securities.
The securities involved included subprime residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, which took market value losses in late 2007 and in
Two other co-conspirators, David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, previously pleaded guilty.
