The story of how rogue trader Nick Leeson brought down Barings Bank is being turned into a TV drama by the makers of The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe.
Story Films, which was behind the hit ITV drama about canoe conman John Darwin, will now chart the rise and fall of banker Leeson in a four-part series.
The working title is The Man Who Broke the Bank.
It will show how Leeson, a plasterer’s son from Watford, Herts, hid losses of more than £800million in the mid-1990s in Singapore.
It lead to the collapse of one of Britain’s oldest merchant banks.
Story Films co-founder Dave Nath called it “a gripping tale of 90s hubris, of squandered talent, fear, fraud and disgrace”.
Leeson’s 1996 autobiography Rogue Trader was made into a 1999 film of the same name starring Ewan McGregor in the title role.
Leeson and the Barings collapse was also the subject of a 1996 Inside Story Special documentary for BBC2.
After serving time in prison, Leeson is now a debt counsellor living in Galway, Ireland.
Story Films has not yet revealed which channel will be screening the drama.
Filming is due to begin later this year and broadcast is planned for next year.
As well as The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe, starring Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan, Story Films made last year’s Channel 4 series Deceit, based on the murder of Rachel Nickell.
The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe depicted how John Darwin faked his own death back in 2002 in a dishonest plot with ex-wife Anne Darwin, who played the grieving widow and helped him collect his £250,000 life insurance policy.
Anne and John, from Hartlepool, eventually decided to move to Panama City to start a new life together, before the Mirror exposed the fraud with a now-famous photo of them smiling side by side in a Panama real estate office in July 2006.
The drama followed the pair in the lead up to their fraud conviction.
The deception took its toll on the married couple’s sons Mark and Anthony, who disowned their parents after the revelations, but have since reconciled with their mum Anne.
