FBI Breaks Big Insider Trading Case: The Usual Anglo-Saxon Names

FBI Boston @FBIBoston

#BREAKING: An #FBI Boston investigation has resulted in charges against 30 individuals for their roles in a global insider trading scheme that netted tens of millions in illicit profits.

Tens of millions is chickenfeed compared to what people close to the White House are making. Still …

The #FBI executed arrests in AL, CA, FL, NJ, and NY today for individuals who are accused of capitalizing on confidential information stolen from leading corporate law firms advising on mergers & acquisitions in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

Two subjects, located in Israel and Russia, are actively being sought.

Brian @Is_Not_Brian

9h

I thought this was a joke man I had to see it for myself.

Like most of these types of schemes, the details aren’t exactly rocket science. All it really takes is opportunity and a lack of scruples. Lots more details at the DoJ announcement:

Thirty Individuals Charged in Global Insider Trading Scheme Netting Tens of Millions in Illicit Profits

…

As alleged in the charging documents, Nicolo Nourafchan, who was a licensed corporate attorney at several large law firms, and others, accessed their law firms’ internal computer networks to view confidential documents relating to pending acquisitions, including confidential transactions on which Nourafchan did not work, and then provided the material non-public information (MNPI) to others in exchange for kickbacks. Nicolo Nourafchan and his partner, Robert Yadgarov, another New York attorney, allegedly recruited other attorneys and insiders to serve as sources of inside information. In exchange for the MNPI, Nourafchan and Yadgarov allegedly paid their sources kickbacks consisting of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash.

Nourafchan and Yadgarov also allegedly provided the MNPI to a network of traders and middlemen whom they also enlisted to join the scheme. The middlemen, including Gavryel Silverstein and Lorenzo Nourafchan, allegedly provided the MNPI to other traders and tippees as a way of attempting to obscure the connections between sources and traders. Meanwhile, the traders allegedly executed trades while in possession of MNPI, either on Nourafchan and Yadgarov’s behalf or on their own behalf, in exchange for their agreement to kickback illicit trading proceeds to Nourafchan, Yadgarov, and others. Many traders allegedly passed the MNPI onto other traders, again in exchange for their agreement to kick back illicit trading proceeds up the chain to the sources of the MNPI, including Nourafchan and Yadgarov.

In total, it is alleged that overseas traders (including Gavrilov and Izraelov) and traders located in California, Florida, New Jersey and New York, among other locations, traded while in possession of MNPI ahead of nearly 30 M&A deals involving public companies, including some of the largest M&A deals of the last decade, on national and foreign securities exchanges.

As alleged, the defendants and other co-conspirators sought to keep law enforcement from learning about the scheme by, among other means, using burner phones, encrypted applications, coded language, including about “flights,” and in-person meetups where conspirators turned off their electronic devices or put them elsewhere before communicating with each other.

And so on and so forth.

I’ve been so busy following geopolitics that I missed the story that’s referenced in the linked Fox article. There’s a promotion at the end of the article which I’m not promoting, but in general it’s a salutary warning to chumps:

Global scam crackdown leads to 276 arrests

FBI, DOJ and global partners shut down crypto scam centers

Here’s the DoJ announcement, dated April 29. The ringleaders appear to have been based in Indonesia

Coordinated Takedown of Scam Centers Leads to at Least 276 Arrests; Alleged Managers and Recruiters Charged in San Diego