The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by David Enrich

Part I The Scam

Chapter 1
Wayching the Coronation

The Brackenbury Primary School, in the dumpy west London
neighborhood of Shepherd’s Bush, was in a three-story, redbrick Victorianera

building. From outside, the school looked grand. Inside, it was a
different matter: High ceilings created a cavernous, intimidating vibe, paint
was peeling from the walls, and cold air drafted in through ragged
insulation. The small campus, just down the street from the Goldhawk Road
Underground station, was in a part of London marked by tracts of similarlooking,

century-old houses and down-on-their-luck convenience stores,
pubs, and Laundromats. Brackenbury’s student body, drawn from the
surrounding neighborhoods, was primarily working class.
In 1990, one of the school’s students was Tom Hayes. The ten-year-old
was big for his age, with a mop of sandy blond hair and small dark eyes. He
was burning with anger. It was hard to pinpoint the exact reason. His
parents had split up six years ago after his mother, Sandy, caught his father,
Nick, cheating. Hayes detested Nick’s absence from his life. Nor was he
thrilled that upon his father’s remarrying in 1989, Tom and his younger
brother, Robin, had inherited two stepsisters from Nick’s new wife, as well
as a baby half sister. But Nick wasn’t the only issue. Hayes resented what
he saw as Sandy’s cold, controlling nature and the fact that she seemed
more devoted to her job than to mothering her two sons.
Money was tight. Once, before his parents divorced, angry debt
collectors showed up at their small, two-floor brick house in Shepherd’s
Bush after Nick, a ponytailed television journalist, fell behind on the utility

The Spider Network: The Wild Story of a Math Genius, a Gang of Backstabbing Bankers, and One of the Greatest Scams in Financial History by David Enrich