"It's his ear," a photographer shouted gleefully, reviewing pictures he snapped of a police-escorted van thought to be carrying the alleged rogue trader in the scandal shaking Societe Generale.
If it was Jerome Kerviel's ear, that is pretty much the best glimpse anyone has gotten of the elusive 31-year-old trader, who has given the slip to media from around the world pursuing the story of history's biggest trading misadventure.
Kerviel shot from anonymity to international celebrity last week when Societe Generale said he was behind a "massive fraud" that had cost it 4.82 billion euros (US$7.09 billion).
PHOTO: AP
Although his photograph -- a grainy mug shot culled from the bank's Web site -- made the front page of papers around the world, Kerviel has managed to remain invisible. He has not spoken a word to the press and has kept journalists guessing about his whereabouts. No fresh photos of Kerviel have been published since the scandal broke.
After police held him for nearly 48 hours, judges on Monday filed preliminary charges against Kerviel -- and then ordered him released while the probe continues. Although hundreds of reporters were staking out the offices he still managed to slip away unnoticed.
"It's like the Wild West, and Kerviel is an outlaw with `Wanted' signs all over the place," said French paparazzo Pascal Rostain, one of a small army of photographers searching for Kerviel. "It's enormous, every paper in the world is after his photo."
Photo agencies and publications that use paparazzi photos won't speculate about what a shot of Kerviel would be worth -- for fear of driving prices up. A staffer at one agency, who declined to be identified, said only that an image of Kerviel would fetch "lots and lots of money."
Also See: Societe General employees file lawsuit
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS