After growing up in the Cotswolds, Trevor Kitchen emigrated with his family to South Africa. At 27, and despite being a successful business owner there, he did not agree with the political situation, which he regarded as unfair, and left for Europe.
Being a keen traveller with a deep interest in other cultures, he has lived and worked on four continents but always remains passionate about Africa, its wildlife and its natural beauty and landscapes. Trevor has always been deeply concerned about the effects of encroachment and poaching. [Biography continues]
Most of his career was spent working in finance at upper management level with some of the world's leading companies. He specialised in financial reporting, internal controls, policies and procedures.
After retirement, and never being afraid to speak truth to power, in 2011 he alerted regulators and government authorities around the globe to currency manipulation of the foreign exchange markets. A scandal broke that led to historic fines of $10.2 billion for major banks. US attorneys described Trevor Kitchens’s role in exposing this as significant and immeasurable. He was the catalyst who kicked the hornets' nest, describing how currency traders had used high-leverage, high-frequency trading and algorithms to manipulate the currency markets.
Despite multiple requests by several US attorneys (and one who later became a judge), for the CFTC to issue Trevor an award for his brave role, he and other whistleblowers have never received a cent from the American regulator's whistleblower award programme, which received billions in fines.
Unfortunately, his natural inclination to help others ended in deceit and persecution in 2017, when the Swiss banker whom he had been helping for six years turned on him. When Trevor complained to authorities about the banker's financial conduct towards him, the Swiss Government issued an EU-wide warrant for Trevor's arrest. Lawyers have since described the Swiss Government’s seven year pursuit of Trevor Kitchen as an abuse of power and a politically motivated persecution, one that is a perversion of the law and that constitutes a real revenge.
Trevor now lives with his wife as a non-person. The Swiss continue to hunt him.
