Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

Four Arrested in Tech-Heavy Insider Trading Case

The FBI has arrested four people in connection with an insider trading investigation that’s been conducted by prosecutors in New York City, and the defendants are connected to several technology companies.

James Fleishman, 41, of Santa Clara, Calif., a sales manager for a research firm called Primary Global Research, based in Mountain View, was arrested on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy. According to a statement from Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Fleishman conspired to provide confidential information, including material, non-public information to the firm’s clients using a network of employees at various tech firms.

One was Daniel Devore, a global supply manager at Dell who also worked as a consultant for the research firm. Devore pled guilty on Dec. 10 to charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The complaint against him says he was paid more than $145,000 during a period starting in late 2007 and ending in Aug. 2010 for providing inside information on Dell’s suppliers. Devore is said to be cooperating in the case.

Three more people were arrested today, all on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud:

Mark Anthony Longoria, 44, of Round Rock, Texas, worked as a supply chain manager for Advanced Micro Devices. The complaint says Longoria provided Primary Global clients with revenue and gross margin information, sales figures and average sales prices, all very useful to stock traders. According to the complaint he was paid more than $200,000 for the information.

Walter Shimoon, 39, of San Diego, worked for Flextronics, the Singapore-based contract manufacturer as its senior director of business development. Between 2008 and 2010, the complaint says, he was paid $22,000 for consultation calls with Primary Global clients during which he supplied insider information about Flextronics’ dealings with Apple, filling them in with confidential details about the forthcoming iPhone models, and about the iPad.

Manosha Karunatilaka, 37 of Marlborough, Mass., worked for Taiwan Semiconductor Corp., the massive chip foundry company. The complaint says he provided Primary Global clients with insider information on that company, including confidential sales and shipping information, and was paid $35,000 between January of 2008 and June of 2010.

There’s more details here from The Wall Street Journal.

The criminal complaint is below:

Shimoon, Et Al. Complaint

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik