6.7 Billion is a joke, but he totally deserve to be indebted for life, with or without Soc Gen being aware of what he was doing.
They are sending a message about financial responsibility of traders. You can't continuously take moronic risk to get big bonus and hide behind an institution when things are turning sour.
I don't know how SocGen works, but his positions were so stupid that there is no way a decent risk manager with half a brain would have let this happen, profitable or not. Common, pure directional bets, cutting profits and letting losses run, his ass saved by the subprime mess a first time, it's pure gambling, no better than a total newbie.IMO perhaps the risk managers saw some unusual activity but thought it was a bug or an error .Some people were aware of it but not the bright decision making ones.