The rogue trader who is said to have caused 4.9 billion euros ($7.2 billion) in losses at Frech bank Societe Generale carried out huge unauthorized trades in secret, overcoming high security controls, company officials said.

Jerome Kerviel, 31, of France was named as the trader responsible for the loss over several months last year. The bank questioned him about the incident but officials have not kept track of where he is now.

An attorney at the law office representing Kerviel said Thursday that the trader is ready to speak with authorities, and is not on the run, according to media reports.

Kerviel, who earned about 100,000 euros ($145,000) trading stock indexes as his specialty, did not earn anything from the trades, and seemed to do it on his own, according to company officials.

His previous occupation had been working at Societe Generale's risk management office where the company monitored trades. The company said that the knowledge he gained there aided his efforts to hide his trades.

After several months, one of Kerviel's trades alerted the company that something was wrong. Several of the trader's supervisors will be fired, the bank said.

The company learned about problems with trades on Friday, and on Saturday said it determined they were fraudulent. Over the course of the next week, starting on Monday, the company moved to unwind trading positions related to Kerviel's trades.

The trader's losses were about 2.9 billion euros, with another 2 billion euros spent to unwind the trades.

He focused on trades of baskets such as the Euro Stoxx 50 and in markets such as France's CAC-40 and Germany's DAX index.

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