内容摘要："I did ask my wife to accompany me, but I don't think she was too keen."

"I did ask my wife to accompany me, but I don't think she was too keen."

The case against Trafigura has had all the elements of a financial thriller: millions of dollars, shady middlemen and a chain of shell companies located in offshore havens like the Virgin Islands.Trafigura's strategy, the court heard, was to set up a complex payment web, through which an official with Angola's state oil company was paid almost $5m (£4.02m; €4.81) between 2009 and 2011.

Documents presented to the court by Swiss prosecutors showed payments authorised on Trafigura's own headed notepaper.The strategy appeared to work: over the next few years, the court heard, Angola signed contracts with Trafigura worth almost $144m (£115.93; €138.56).Trafigura, whose lawyers appeared bullish before the verdict, denied bribery. The company said its own compliance and anti-corruption measures had been independently assessed and found to be excellent.

But the sheer weight of the evidence - which included dozens of documents, emails and memos - revealed a different picture: strict anti-corruption measures on paper but an intricate structure set up to evade those measures in reality. At the heart of it sat a middleman named "Mr Non-Compliant" in an anonymous Geneva office.The case will send a chill through commodity brokers worldwide but especially in Geneva, where Trafigura and many other commodity trading houses are headquartered.

In an eerie coincidence, the night before the verdict was delivered, a fire broke out at the five star Hotel des Bergues - where, court documents showed, an Angolan official stayed at the expense of Trafigura in 2008.

Swiss federal prosecutors hope the case will be a symbol that the old ways of doing business are finally over.The Orleans Parish Jail is located near the centre of the city, around 3 km (2 miles) from the city's famous French Quarter.

From Winston Churchill to Amy Winehouse, and Charles Darwin to Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa, portraits of a host of British icons feature in the first immersive exhibition to use one of Britain's national art collections.The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has combined digital versions of portraits from its collection with animated graphics and voiceovers to tell the stories of 19 celebrities and historical figures.

It is the latest in a wave of increasingly popular immersive art shows, which fill gallery walls with large-scale projected visuals.The show launches in Salford on Friday before going on a UK tour. But while access to see the original portraits in the NPG in London is free, entrance to the Stories Brought To Life exhibition costs up to £35.