markets Goldman Sachs Vice President Charged With Insider Trading By Erik Larson and Christian Berthelsen May 31, 2018, 8:48 AM PDT Updated on May 31, 2018, 11:32 AM PDT Woojae ’Steve’ Jung got $140,000 from corrupt trades, U.S says Jung allegedly used an alias account to cover his tracks A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. vice president gambled his career on a series of trades using inside information about the bank’s clients, U.S. authorities alleged, including one that netted him $362. Woojae “Steve" Jung used non-public information about deals involving a dozen customers, according to records unsealed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. In total, Jung is accused of making $140,000 in illegal profits by trading through an alias brokerage account tied to a friend in South Korea. Jung, a South Korean citizen working at Goldman Sachs’s new laid-back San Francisco office, was charged with one count of conspiracy and six counts of securities fraud for running the alleged scam from 2015 to 2017. “We are aware of the situation regarding Mr. Jung and are cooperating with legal authorities," Goldman Sachs said in an emailed statement. The firm put Jung on leave on Thursday. The New York-based bank isn’t identified in the complaint, but Jung’s LinkedIn page says he started working at Goldman Sachs in 2012 after graduating from Wharton Business School. Jung didn’t immediately respond to a message sent through the social-media network. He doesn’t have a lawyer listed on the court docket. He’s scheduled to appear later on Thursday in federal court in California. Jung, 37, allegedly tried to cover his tracks by purchasing the securities in a brokerage account held in the name of a friend living in South Korea, according to a parallel suit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The trades allegedly involved companies including New York-based software maker CA Inc., the Dutch technology firm NXP Semiconductors NV and FEI Co., a supplier of scientific instruments for nanoscale applications based in Hillsboro, Oregon, according to the complaint. Information at Work Jung got inside information about business transactions involving the companies through his regular work, as well as by accessing the bank’s files and communicating with colleagues working on deals, the U.S. said. According to his LinkedIn page, Jung focused on technology, media and telecommunications sectors. He was promoted from associate to vice president, and moved from New York to San Francisco in July 2015, according to his LinkedIn page. Federal prosecutors listed examples of the trades that highlighted Jung’s early access to crucial insider information and the relatively small profits he made from his elaborate efforts. $362 Profit In one case, on March 12, 2015, Jung learned about Murray Energy Corp.’s potential acquisition of a majority stake in Foresight Energy, the U.S. said. The next day, Jung’s alias brokerage account bought 400 shares of Foresight stock. On March 15, when the deal was announced publicly, Foresight Energy shares rose 12 percent. When the shares were sold five days later, Jung allegedly reaped a profit of $362. According to the complaint, Jung initially appeared to comply with Goldman Sachs’s internal policies by closing his Interactive Brokers LLC account when he started working at the bank and opening a bank-approved account at Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC instead. That allowed Goldman Sachs to keep track of Jung’s trading to ensure it wasn’t improper, the U.S. said. But Jung secretly opened a new Interactive Brokers account under the name of a school friend in South Korea, the U.S. said. ‘Electronic Fingerprints’ Jung "left his electronic fingertips” on that account, accessing it more than 600 times and using it to make illegal trades, the U.S. said. The access logs for the account led to three of Jung’s Internet subscriber IP addresses, according to the suit. Finally, in July 2016, an attempt was made to transfer $5,600 out of the account, according to the suit. Interactive Brokers rejected the request as improper, leading to a phone call from someone claiming to be the South Korean friend, the U.S. said. The call was placed from a mobile phone registered to Jung, according to the suit. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...s-vice-president-charged-with-insider-trading
I will bet there are far bigger fishes to fry at Goldman Sachs (and JP Morgan, Bank of America, etc), but I will also bet that the SEC will never touch any of them. Amazing how the SEC is spending limited resources on 6 digit matters while letting 8-12 digit matters go.
Ha-ha, yes. I am not surprised in any way. Certain "very honest" managers of big institutions are the one who caused all our trouble and our war. The whole industry has to review their policy and respect towards us, individual traders, for many of them we still are an easy bait.
SEC was founded by banksters. And, I must expand your etc with "friends' - UBS, Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas. More details are on our website and our cruel battle.
Indeed. I suspect that in this case Mr Jung was ratted out to the SEC by someone at Goldman Sachs as some sort of sacrifice / reward for not going after the real dirt and yet still be able to keep the illusion of diligence / fairness intact (at least for the vast unsuspecting public). Hard to believe that the SEC would somehow have discovered the irregularity on its own, and pursued the case involving such a paltry sum of money.
Initially I thought that was a typo. Surely there should be more zero's after that number I thought until I reached this paragraph. He REALLY just made $362!! He's putting all those insider traders in shame. All those trouble just to make $362???!! And he's a Goldman Sachs VP??!!! Goldman Sachs really need to train their employees to aim higher. Well I guess this is what you get when you let them run a laid-back Goldman Sachs franchise on the west coast.
These titles are given quickly. I know somebody who was within 2-3 years senior VP in a similar US company. It is just a sales technique: a senior VP is coming to you to speak about investments! How impressive! But in reality he is just an employee. The fact that the idiot at GS made only $362 shows how "important" he is/was. Pure delusional.
He made like 140k. One trade was 392. The article mentioned the one trade to elicit a reaction. VP is a staff level. The third out of 5 levels and virtually automatic if you survive for 5 years out of undergrad.
so, question, how does this bloke's future life looks like now? time for him to change sectors? Hugh?