- Charlotte Bamber admitted to wire fraud and price manipulation while working as a commodities trader.
- She entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the DOJ in exchange for cooperating with a probe.
A former commodities trader who admitted to wire fraud and price manipulation ruined a non-prosecution agreement she scored after it was revealed she was harassing the former colleagues she was helping to investigate.
Charlotte Bamber, a former trader of oil products at Trafigura Group, entered into the non-prosecution agreement with the DOJ in 2020 in exchange for cooperating with a probe into her former employer.
Under the terms of the agreement, Bamber was not to have contact with her colleagues and would not face jail time if she helped investigators dig into the price manipulation plan she was a part of.
In a June 26 court filing reviewed by Insider, Bamber acknowledged she violated the agreement after the investigators on the case discovered she was sending threatening messages to her former co-workers.
Bamber did not acknowledge she had sent the emails until confronted with the evidence by FBI and DOJ agents. It remains unclear how the agents tracked the emails to Bamber.
"You should probably tell your family what is about to be made public," Bamber wrote to another employee being investigated, using a pseudonymous email account, in November 2021. "Everything you do always catches up with you. Always. You'll get a great roommate, don't worry."
In January of the following year, she wrote another taunting email to a different employee of the firm: "Tick Tock. There's no way out for you. Enjoy balding even further, if that's possible."
Bamber specifically mentioned the investigation and that management planned to throw the former employees "under the bus" for participating in the trading fraud.
"Guess who snitched on the other about C07 payment approvals?" Bamber wrote, copying two colleagues under investigation in the same email thread: "One of you will lose everything."
In a February 2022 interview, according to the filing, Bamber was asked by FBI agents and DOJ Fraud Section attorneys whether she had any contact with other employees of Trafigura Group — and lied about it. She denied having had contact with her former colleagues, violating the non-prosecution agreement, and opening herself up to a sentence of up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
"In relation to the previous investigation referred to in this document, external legal counsel conducted a review and found no evidence of improper trading activity by Trafigura or its employees," Representatives for Trafigura Group told Insider in an emailed statement. "From our perspective, this matter is now closed."
Bamber's sentencing hearing, which would have been avoided had she not sent the harassing emails, is set for October 24.
Lawyers representing the United States and Bamber did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.