This is the risk banks run when dealing with rogues. The Times writes that Kerviel "has become something of a global folk hero, with songs, videos and Internet sites devoted to him, was portrayed by his lawyers as the victim of unscrupulous employers." The villain, of course, will be the bank. Kerviel is now saying that he "can't believe" that his superiors had no idea what he was doing. The danger for top executives is that they end up looking really bad for allowing this to happen. There are already calls being heard for top execs to step down. There will be questions about risk controls and whether they were up to par for a global banking operation. He was making bad trades as far back as 2005 and no one noticed until the losses hit $7 billion. So this is a cautionary tale for all U.S. executives. The question remains: Can it happen on Wall Street?

For more:
- here's an article from The Times
- here's an article from the AP
- here's a New York Post article