MANUEL ZABRANIECKI, a broker at Société Générale, was detained by French financial police investigating the rogue trading scandal at the bank yesterday after a raid on the bank's La Défense headquarters.

Mr Zabraniecki is understood to work as a cash equities broker at SG Securities, part of the corporate investment division, executing trades for the equities derivatives desk, where Jérôme Kerviel, the man at the centre of the scandal, worked. Police also searched Mr Zabraniecki's desk and confiscated his computer and some documents.

Mr Zabraniecki was among Mr Kerviel's friends listed on Facebook, the social network website. He is 29 years old and joined SocGen in March 2002, according to social network websites.

SocGen confirmed yesterday that "as part of the process of the police investigation, the police came to our office today and conducted a search; one person is being kept in custody".

Last month Moussa Bakir, Mr Kerviel's sales trader at Newedge, a firm of brokers part-owned by SocGen, was also interviewed by financial police. Mr Bakir was released without charge and is on sick leave. -