Perhaps the three will be found guilty, but it isn't likely to have much impact on trading in the paper silver markets. If there is solution to artificially rigged prices, it will come from somewhere else.

It isn't that regulators don't have a lot to go on. Investigators had the goods when prosecutors got Deutsche Bank to plead guilty and cooperate.

The German bank turned over mountains of additional evidence the FBI used to target two other JPMorgan traders, John Edmonds and Christian Trunz. Those two cut deals of their own and agreed to provide evidence against Nowak, Smith, and Ruffo.

At present, regulators don't seem to care much about cleaning up the markets. They appear to have little interest in holding the actual businesses that drive these corrupt trading schemes accountable.

The effort is focused on prosecuting a few lower-level crooks while avoiding serious consequences for the bank and its senior executives.