Agents more used to tracking terrorists and busting organized-crime rings have found a lucrative second career keeping tabs on Wall Street traders.
“Military-intelligence people are used to parsing partial bits of data from communications, from behaviors, and putting those together in a way that would predict the next terrorist attack or some other type of much more horrible thing than we’re dealing with,” said Ben Bair, global head of whistle-blowing and investigations at Barclays in London. “And that’s what we need to take surveillance to the next level.” In the past 18 months, firms including Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have hired dozens of former agents from the U.S. and British military, the Central Intelligence Agency and the top secret U.K. Government Communications Headquarters, executives and recruiters said. Officials at the banks declined to comment.