The European Commission hit three banks Wednesday with fines totaling €485 million for manipulating financial benchmarks, wrapping up a long-running global probe that has already cost the sector some €1.5 billion in EU penalties and billions more globally.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest trader of euro interest rate derivatives, forked over the biggest share, paying €337 million, while Crédit Agricole’s bill was €115 million and HSBC’s €33 million.

Despite the high sanctions, the three banks were only part-time players in collusion that spanned almost three years and was led by Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and Société Générale. They, together with RBS, settled with the Commission in 2013.

Traders would talk and joke on online chat forums, swapping sensitive information and planning future submissions, which would be averaged together to set the EURIBOR benchmark interest rate. The Commission estimated that one category of euro interest rate derivatives, designed to insure against interest rate fluctuations, were worth as much as €5.98 trillion.

“Even tiny movements in the EURIBOR rate can have huge impact given the volume of trading,” said Margrethe Vestager, the European commissioner for competition. “We received a number of chats between traders thanking each other and congratulating each other for work well done.”

The language was often obscene, she added, “I would be seriously blushing if I were to repeat any of the [conversations] in that chat room.”

The three banks had fiercely resisted the charges, arguing they were only tangentially involved in the manipulation, which they said did not amount to a cartel under EU competition laws.

But after the Commission levied fines of €1.49 billion on four other banks in December 2013 as part of a settlement, it was almost duty-bound to hit the refuseniks hard.

The financial sector has been wracked by multiple scandals in the wake of the 2008 global crisis. Revelations, which first surfaced in The Wall Street Journal, that banks had colluded over interest rates were among the first allegations.

A number of regulators worldwide have sanctioned banks for the manipulation, while some traders have been sentenced to jail time.

As for the EU, the 2013 settlement dealt with euro and yen interest rate benchmarks, while two 2014 decisions meted out fines totaling less than €100 million for conduct relating to Swiss franc derivatives.

Today’s decision concludes the Commission’s probe into interest rate benchmarks, and legislators have since revised the laws governing how companies participate in them.

Nevertheless, investigators continue to probe other allegations, including accusations that banks manipulated the $5 trillion (€4.7 trillion) foreign exchange market, which have led to billion dollar settlements in the U.S.

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POLITICO reported in October that regulators were considering settling that long-standing probe.