In the last decade, 37 traders and brokers have been prosecuted by the US Department of Justice and the UK's Serious Fraud Office for their roles in 'rigging' interest-rates during the Great Financial Crisis (GFC).

However, in extracts from Rigged, a book by Andy Verity on the Libor-rigging scandal (published in The Times), he explains how in 2008, it was central banks and government that pressed banks to bring down key interest rates, but none of this evidence was ever shown to jurors in nine criminal trials which resulted in multiple jail sentences for those involved (19 convicted, 9 jailed).

Backed up and supplemented by published data, The BBC reports that the suppressed evidence indicates that in October 2008, central banks intervened on a large scale in the setting of Libor and Euribor.

This was at the same time as dozens of former traders were criminally prosecuted for much less serious rate "manipulation", it is claimed.