Barclays’ security head quizzed over Jes Staley's whistleblower hunt

Barclays’ head of security is to be probed over his role in chief executive Jes Staley’s attempt to find the identity of a whistleblower.

Troels Oerting, a former Europol investigator, was asked by Staley to find out who had written two letters to the board of Barclays criticising a top banker, Tim Main, a close colleague of Staley.

Staley has apologised and will see his pay docked by perhaps £1 million.

Oerting will face an internal investigation, the BBC reported.

It is thought that since the letters had a US postmark, Oerting contacted US federal cops to try to find where it came from.

He joined Barclays in 2015 after heading Europol’s Cyber Crime Unit.

The FT reported today that Barclays had cut its ties with the company that set up an internal whistleblowing service just weeks ago.

The bank ended its deal with Endinel to offer internal “chat” services for people wishing to report colleagues.

Barclays’ board said it would be issuing a formal written reprimand to Staley and has decided “a very significant compensation adjustment will be made to Mr Staley’s variable compensation award”.

The US Department of Justice is rumoured to have begun its probe of the matter. Barclays had no comment on that.