Money corrupts. And too many young men are being seduced and radicalised by its lure.

Greed-fuelled extremism is not a new phenomenon. Many communities have dealt with it, going back millennia. In the 8th century BC, Amos, a contemporary of Isaiah, thundered against the wealthy of Sion, threatening to “deliver up the city with the inhabitants thereof”.

Later, as described in the gospel of Matthew, the son of god was forced to engage in violent confrontation to cleanse a temple that had been turned into something resembling a financial hub: “Jesus … cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the chairs of them that sold doves”.

Karl Marx, one of the first German deradicalisation theorists, wrote in 1844 of the psychology of the fanatic: “That which I am unable to do as a man, and of which therefore all my individual essential powers are incapable, I am able to do by means of money”.

The latest example of radicalisation is 28-year-old “Sergei V”, chief suspect in the 11 April assault on football club Borussia Dortmund in Germany. Sergei is alleged to have concealed several explosive devices in a hedge, which later were detonated as the team bus left a hotel. Spanish defender Marc Bartra was injured and required surgery after the attack.

What would drive a young man to such an act? The German chief prosecutor’s office alleges that Sergei purchased 15,000 “put options” on the stock market. Investopedia, a US-based financial training website, notes that “a put option becomes more valuable as the price of the underlying stock depreciates relative to the strike price”.

That’s right – “strike price”. It is chilling.

“If the shares of Borussia Dortmund had fallen massively, the profit would have been several times the initial investment”, the prosecutor’s office explained.

Those in the business of financial engineering call such devices “securities”. Their types have proliferated in recent decades – CDOs, CMOs, CFDs – and we have seen the damage they can do, ripping apart entire economies and devastating communities when they fall into the wrong hands.

I’m not suggesting that everyone making money is a terrorist. Nor do I believe that seeking out information about how to short the market will necessarily lead to radicalisation; there are many decent, law abiding people with a couple of grand under their mattress.

But more needs to be done to halt the tide of extremism. I attempted to contact a number of local financial advisers to ask what efforts they are making to root out the radicals within their ranks.

Most did not return my calls. Frank (not his real name), an analyst at one of the Big Four banks, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a problem in his community. But Frank fears that his Athenaeum Club membership would be terminated if he speaks out publicly.

“Most of us like making money, and are reasonable people. But do we need to do more? Absolutely. There are a few bad eggs – the ‘Greed is good!’ types, always quoting Gordon Gekko. More recently, they have been sharing around an old fundamentalist tract, The art of the deal.

“You don’t want to get on the wrong side of them”, Frank said. “I know a guy in middle management, very respectful, does volunteer work. He came home with takeaway for the family, but got plain naan instead of the garlic. His 13-year-old son looks him directly in the eye and, without a hint of emotion, says, ‘You’re fired’.”

Again, chilling. Social alienation will always provide fertile ground for radicalisation. And ideologues pushing the Efficient Market Hypothesis everywhere prey on our young, offering false hopes of perfect knowledge and a belief that all their desires can be satisfied by the magic of money.

Make no mistake, finance is totalitarian and seeks to dominate and destroy everything that makes us human. As Marx wrote, “Money is the jealous god … in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities … It has, therefore, robbed the whole world – both the world of men and nature – of its specific value”.

There seems no doubt that in the 21st century there is a growing number of financial instruments acting as enablers to a new breed of fanatic. In the age of online forex trading, turning over a few tables will not cut it. We need new tools to take up the fight.