Toshihide Iguchi

Early Years: Born in Kobe, Japan, Iguchi came to the U.S. at the age of 19 to spend a few months with his father who was stationed in New York on business. Enchanted with America, he decided to go to college there and enrolled in Southwest Missouri State College (now Missouri State University) where he majored in Psychology, and married an Air Force brat from St. Louis. Daiwa Years: After graduating, Iguchi was hired at Daiwa's New York branch to work in the Securities Custody Department. In 1980, was also given a responsibility in investment of Floating Rate Notes (FRN). By 1983, he was given authorization to trade FRN and became one of the most active FRN traders on Wall Street. In March of 1983, he lost $70,000 trading FRN and concealed this loss to protect his reputation and job. He continued trading to recoup the loss; however, then it snowballed. In September 1995, fearing the damage his losses may cause the bank if inadvertently discovered, he wrote a confession letter to the president of Daiwa Bank in Japan, detailing what had transpired with the complete details of all the unauthorized trades he had done during the previous 12 years. By this time, the loss was in excess of $1 billion. Incarceration: Daiwa turned Iguchi in to the U.S. authorities with the confession letter he wrote to the CEO personally, without informing him of their intention. He was arrested the next day with no time to obtain a lawyer. With his self-incriminating confession letter, he had no defense. Iguchi was incarcerated in a 8x6 solitary cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City for 15 months befriending George Harp (a founding member of the Aryan Brotherhood), Greg Scarpa (a Mafia hit man), Abu Marzook (a Hamas leader) and Latin Kings members. During his incarceration, Iguchi wrote a memoir of his life in America in Japanese, called "Confession", and while he was still imprisoned, the book became a #1 bestseller in Japan. In 1997, he was sentenced to four years in prison and sent to Allenwood Prison Camp to serve the remainder of his term. There he wrote another book about the life of George Harp, the only surviving founding-member of the Aryan Brotherhood, titled "King of the Prison", which was published in Japan. An English version of the book has been written but not published. Life Now: In March 1999, Iguchi was released from Allenwood FPC and in 2000 he moved to Atlanta, Georgia to begin my new life as a writer. In 2001, he published a fictional novel "Dollar Conspiracy" in Japan. In July 2007, he returned to my hometown of Kobe, Japan after 37 years. Iguchi works in the area of foreign language education, developing digital solutions. In April 2014, his book "My Billion Dollar Education: Inside the Mind of a Rogue Trader" was published. In 2015, he wrote his first screenplay based on the book. His interests continue to be writing and speaking engagements on the topics of trader psychology and risk management controls.