LONDON - Tom Hayes, a former trader at Citigroup and UBS, has been convicted on eight counts of conspiring to manipulate a global benchmark interest rate known as LIBOR, bolstering efforts by prosecutors here to pursue financial wrongdoing.

Hayes was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

The verdict Monday came more than three years after a conspiracy among traders to manipulate the London interbank offered rate first came to light.

The ensuing scandal has led to billions of dollars in fines and rocked the reputations of some of the world's biggest banks, including Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS and Deutsche Bank.

Hayes, 35, was the first person to go to trial in Britain on criminal charges related to LIBOR manipulation, and his case is seen as a bellwether for British authorities, who have been criticized in the United States for not being as aggressive as the Justice Department when it comes to pursuing financial crime.

A second trial of former traders who have been accused of conspiring with Hayes is set for September on charges related to the manipulation of LIBOR. A third trial as it relates to the U.S. dollar is set for January.

"The jury was sure that in his admitted manipulation of LIBOR, Hayes was indeed dishonest," David Green, the director of the Serious Fraud Office, said in a statement. "The verdicts underline the point that bankers are subject to the same standards of ­honesty as the rest of us."

Jurors reached the verdict after a week of deliberations.

The Serious Fraud Office, a British agency that investigates fraud, had accused Hayes of being a ringleader among more than a dozen traders in what authorities said was a brazen scheme to manipulate LIBOR, which helps determine the borrowing costs for trillions of dollars in loans. He was accused of misconduct engaged from 2006 to 2010.

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