Three men have been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the ma­nip­u­la­tion of the Li­bor in­ter-bank lend­ing rate. The three men-aged 33, 41 and 47 -have been tak­en to a Lon­don po­lice sta­tion for in­ter­view. The Se­ri­ous Fraud Of­fice has is­sued search war­rants for three prop­er­ties in the South East of Eng­land-one in Sur­rey and two in Es­sex.

All three men are British na­tion­als liv­ing in the UK, a state­ment said. In Ju­ly, the SFO said it had for­mal­ly launched a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the rig­ging of in­ter-bank lend­ing rates. As well as in­di­vid­u­als, a num­ber of ma­jor banks are al­so be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by reg­u­la­to­ry au­thor­i­ties in the UK and the US over at­tempts to ma­nip­u­late the rate, one of the most im­por­tant in the UK econ­o­my.

The dai­ly Li­bor rate is cal­cu­lat­ed from banks' es­ti­mates of how much it costs them to bor­row from oth­er banks, and is used as the ba­sis for some re­tail bank and mort­gage rates. In June, Bar­clays bank was fined £290 mil­lion for at­tempt­ing to ma­nip­u­late the rate.

A re­port writ­ten by the Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Au­thor­i­ty's man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Mar­tin Wheat­ley in Sep­tem­ber said the Li­bor sys­tem was bro­ken and in need of a com­plete over­haul, in­clud­ing crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions for those who try to ma­nip­u­late it. Wheat­ley said bankers guilty of fix­ing Li­bor in the fu­ture could be jailed.

BBC