NEW YORK, (Reuters) – A group of mainly U.S.-based stock traders and computer hackers in Ukraine made as much as $100 million in illegal profits over five years by conspiring to use information stolen from thousands of corporate press statements before their public release, U.S. authorities said yesterday.
Prosecutors announced charges against nine people in an insider-trading case that marks the first time criminal charges have been brought for a securities fraud scheme involving hacked inside information, in this instance 150,000 press releases from distributors Business Wire, Marketwired and PR Newswire.
“This is the story of a traditional securities fraud scheme with a twist – one that employed a contemporary approach to a conventional crime,” Diego Rodriguez, FBI assistant director-in-charge, said at a news conference.
Prosecutors said the Ukraine-based hackers, who were given “shopping lists” of press releases by the traders, improperly accessed press statements before the distributors planned to release them to the public.
The hackers created a “video tutorial” to help traders see the stolen releases and were paid a portion of the profits from trades based on the information in them, prosecutors said.
The nine people were indicted by grand juries in Brooklyn, New York, and Newark, New Jersey, on charges that they made $30 million in illegal profits starting around February 2010.
Five were arrested yesterday. International arrest warrants were issued for the other four.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a related civil lawsuit charged 17 people and 15 corporate entities, and said that thefts of inside information resulted in more than $100 million in illegal profit.
The SEC said the network included traders in New York, Cyprus, France, Malta and Russia. It is seeking civil penalties, and has already obtained court-ordered asset freezes.
Law enforcement officials have warned companies for years about securing their computer networks against hackers, whose victims over the past two years have included leading retailers and U.S. government personnel.
“This case illustrates how cyber criminals and those who commit securities fraud are evolving and becoming more sophisticated,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman in New Jersey said at the news conference. “The hackers were relentless and they were patient.”
Fishman said the distributors, who were not charged with wrongdoing, provided “fabulous cooperation” in the probe.
