Two former traders have been jailed for more than 13 years for trying to rig a key financial benchmark at the height of the financial crisis.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said 46-year old Christian Bittar, who was once one of Deutsche Bank's most profitable traders, and 50-year old former Barclays trader Phillipe Moryoussef had conspired to fix the Euro Interbank Offered rate (Euribor) for personal gain.

"Derivatives trading is often said to be a form of betting. You took the analogy one step further, by loading the dice," said Judge Gledhill when sentencing Mr Bittar.

"In my view, the reason for your offending came at least in part from the satisfaction of being able to beat the system, undetected for so many years, by manipulating the Euribor rate to your own trading advantage."

Mr Bittar was sentenced to five years and four months at Southwark Crown Court while Mr Moryoussef was sentenced to eight years.

The charges stem from a long-running SFO investigation into Euribor rigging following its high-profile probe into the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate (Libor).

"Today’s result is the culmination of six years’ worth of investigation into rate-rigging so I would like to pay tribute to our team’s hard work," said SFO director Mark Thompson.