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Insider Trader Arrested After He Googled 'Insider Trading,' Authorities Allege

Posted by BeauHD on from the breadcrumb-trail dept.

Spy Handler writes: Fei Yan, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 31-year-old Chinese citizen, was arrested by federal authorities on Wednesday on insider trading charges. Mr. Yan used Google to search for phrases such as "how sec detect unusual trade" and "insider trading with international account." He also allegedly read an article titled "Want to Commit Insider Trading? Here's How Not to Do It," according to the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case. Further reading: Associated Press, CNBC, USA Today

24 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. So... he was charged with reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really? Waiting for the crime here....

    1. Re: So... he was charged with reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Fuck. I just got arrested for clicking on this story.

    2. Re:So... he was charged with reading? by Cyberglich · · Score: 4, Informative

      RTFA he made bank on 2 mergers last year that is wifes firm was involved in . Thats sketchy as hell. Add the searches to that and you have probable cause to do some major digging.

    3. Re:So... he was charged with reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      He did trades on two different companies that were acquired. And presumably that's the only trades that account has done. And both were immediately very profitable. These are then flag as suspicious by SEC data analysis.
      The only connection they can find between the two is that the same law firm handled the acquisitions. They then find that the account is owned by a family member of someone at the law firm. They now have probably cause to issue warrants and get the search results?
      Ie. the search results are what are flagged him, not his wife, but the fact that insider trading was going on was discovered long before the search results.
      My impression of how it went anyway.

    4. Re:So... he was charged with reading? by will_die · · Score: 5, Informative

      Data analysis came up that investments made by some lady who lives in China were weird. Checking the phone calls to the brokerage company found they were coming from his phone. From there they found them being mother and son and then he was married to a lawyer involved in the legal work. Then they subpoenaed his searches from yahoo and google.

    5. Re:So... he was charged with reading? by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The lawyer will have a field day with searches for insider trading. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse (then why isn't everyone treated as a lawyer) so he had information which he thought might have been insider trading, so they did searches on the internet to make sure the trades they did would not break the law and well, they got it wrong. What authorities are claiming is if you are doing legal searches to not break the law, then you are breaking the law because the law claims no citizen has ignorance of any law or it's details or it's legal interpretation which by law are of equal skill to judges of the highest appointments. To search the law is not breaking the regardless of the absurdity of 'ignorance of the law is not excuse' no matter how obscure the law.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re:So... he was charged with reading? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So... he was charged with reading?

      If so then clearly you have nothing to worry about.

    7. Re: So... he was charged with reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You were so right until about half way, then you turned into a shitpost.
      Authorities are claiming if you break the law, regardless of prior knowledge of the law, you broke the law. And that's it. You can try and argue about his intent here but if he had good intentions he would not have broke the law after reading about it. He had enough doubt about the legality of his actions that he searched it out online instead of getting real legal advice. Because he knew a real lawyer would call him out.

      This is why I said you shitpost. Because you brought in a secondary argument that has very little relevance and you resorted to basically rewording the same bad argument in a crazy run-on sentence followed by another confused sentence that says the same damn thing.

      Also, if you represent yourself you will be treated like a lawyer. You just won't know how to act like one. So you'll think they're treating you differently but in reality they would come down on an unprepared or incompetent lawyer just as bad.

    8. Re:So... he was charged with reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      would you have clicked on the article if it had made that clear?

    9. Re: So... he was charged with reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The linked story said he made 120k from insider information he got from his Wife who is a lawyer working in a law firm.

      Quite clear cut. The searches he did is proof of intent. The search is not the crime.

    10. Re: So... he was charged with reading? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      He was also arrested after eating breakfast.

      Because he was a cereal killer?

    11. Re: So... he was charged with reading? by hesiod · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I've also read quite a bit about nuclear and biological weapons...

      If you read that and then promptly created some biological weapons, it definitely DOES prove intent.

  2. Re: What did he DO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well you know if you read the book and made a bomb and blew up the neighbors mailvox with it, you'd probably get in trouble for it. Just like how this guy looked up how to cover up insider trading and went ahead and made 2 insider trades that he profited from.

    I swear the /. commenters get dumber each day.

  3. Re:Why did Google turn him in? by dunkindave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why did Google report the searches to the SEC? Did he short their stock or something? ;-)

    Google didn't report it, they found that he did those searches after they were already looking at him, at least that is what the article implies since it is scant on details. My question though is how they know about the searches? Was it forensics on his computer, or did they get the search history from Google? I'm betting the former.

  4. Re:No one gives a flying fuck about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    > Answer the goddamn question instead of modding me down

    Why not both?

    > Why should I or anyone else give a fuck that this stupid shit got arrested?

    Because it shows that searches can be snooped through, and during an investigation, are. Because standards about privacy and technology that start out being used against the worst criminals are then used against all criminals and then later against non-criminals, and we are in stage 2 of 3. It is a solid argument for a secure connection to a search engine, possibly through a VPN or other anonymizer. Because a search engine log is thought by most to be simply an interface to find something out, instead of an ironclad Log Of Your Intentions. Because it requires readers to think about this before doing things that are perfectly legal.

  5. Re:Why did Google turn him in? by will_die · · Score: 2

    After tracing the trades to him. He made phone calls to the brokerage firm and they found that the name on the account was his mother. They subpoenaed his search results on google and yahoo. I would guess that is now standard procedure.

  6. Yeah by Ryanrule · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We need a new dilbert cartoon. The creator can fuck off though.

    1. Re:Yeah by Dwedit · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://dilbert.com/strip/2011-...

    2. Re:Yeah by ckatko · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah, I also hate people who don't believe the exact things I do. They always challenge my worldview by bringing their "alternative facts" into the discussion. I'm smart. If I was wrong, I'd already know it.

    3. Re:Yeah by gumbi+west · · Score: 2

      Is this ironic or not?

      There are so many possible ways so interpret it.

  7. Title is misleading. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Informative

    After flagging the trades as suspicious through data analysis, the SEC traced them back to Yan.

    The SEC was already on his trail by the time they found out about his search history.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  8. Re:Why did Google turn him in? by will_die · · Score: 2

    Look at https://myactivity.google.com/... if given a user name does not look like it is hard for google to display what you did.

  9. Want to Commit Insider Trading? Here's How Not to! by locater16 · · Score: 2

    Step 1: Don't use your standard work or personal computer, in non incgonito or otherwise browser history tracking mode, to Google, with your google account signed in, phrases such as "Insider trading", "how sec detect unusual trade", or however it is you googled this article to begin with... you dumbass.

  10. Hang on a minute by waynemcdougall · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'll read the fine article as a nice break from my assignment on file system design.

    I'll just close this tab on "Everything Hans Reiser Did Wrong and What to Avoid"

    --
    Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz