The article seems to play up Hayes' Asperger’s as almost an excuse as to why he could do what he did with little emotion.
Just like breaking into a computer system, he used human engineering rather than hacking to rig LIBOR in his favor. He litterally became friends with the people who helped set LIBOR and asked them to help set LIBOR in the direction he wanted.
> For Hayes, it was a light-bulb moment. He knew that banks had always tailored their Libor submissions to benefit their own positions, but the system resisted tampering: no single institution could have much impact on the overall rate when 15 other banks were doing the same thing. But Hayes had worked at enough banks and befriended so many brokers that he realized he could sway several submitters at once. He could pull their strings without them even knowing it. And Hayes was on better terms with his brokers than most. They had in Hayes a kindred spirit—a state school Londoner with a cockney accent.