Jerome Kerviel.......a name that will live in finance infamy..........bets $73,000,000,000 of other people's money on European equity market indices.......uses extraordinary methods to coverage his tracks........personal profit?.........he's bound to be a psychopath.

So what were this guy's motives?
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PARIS (AP) — Societe Generale detailed Sunday how a young trader evaded all its controls to bet some $73 billion — more than the French bank's market worth — on European markets, saying he hacked computers and used other "fraudulent methods" to cover his tracks, causing billions in losses.

The bank says the trader, Jerome Kerviel, did not appear to have profited personally from the transactions and seemingly worked alone — a version of events reiterated Sunday by Jean-Pierre Mustier, chief executive of the bank's corporate and investment banking arm. But, in a conference call with reporters, Mustier added: "I cannot guarantee to you 100% that there was no complicity."

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Societe Generale said Kerviel misappropriated other people's computer access codes, falsified documents and employed other methods to cover his tracks — helped by his previous experience working in offices that monitor traders.

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The bank said Kerviel had built up a position worth some $73.5 billion — which was eventually closed or hedged by last Wednesday with a loss of $7.21 billion.

"The position was unwound over three days in a controlled fashion," it said.

Jean-Michel Aldebert, of the Paris prosecutors' office, told reporters Saturday that Kerviel gave himself up of his own free will. The trader had not been seen in public since the bank announced his unauthorized trades in a statement on Thursday.

His motives remained a mystery, and the bank said it appeared that he did not gain personally from the trades. Acquaintances described Kerviel as reserved and considerate, a young man who once taught children judo and held the door for elderly neighbors.