In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Liborthe London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwidewas set daily by a small group of easily manipulated administrators, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it fractions of a percent to suit their trading portfolios. Tom Hayes, a brilliant but troubled mathematician, became the lynchpin of a wild alliance that included a prickly French trader nicknamed Gollum; the broker Abbo, who liked to publicly strip naked when drinking; a nervous Kazakh chicken farmer known as Derka Derka; a broker known as Village (short for Village Idiot) who racked up huge expense account bills; an executive called Clumpy because of his patchwork hair loss; and a broker uncreatively nicknamed Big Nose who had once been a semi-professional boxer. This group generated incredible riches until it all unraveled in spectacularly vicious, backstabbing fashion.

With exclusive access to key characters and evidence, The Spider Network is not only a rollicking account of the scam, but also a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout.