Watch SEC charges UK citizen for hacking and trading scheme FOREX News

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) these days introduced charges in opposition to UK citizen Robert B. Westbrook for hacking into the pc methods of 5 U.S. public firms to acquire subject matter nonpublic details about their company profits and the use of that data to make roughly $3.75 million in illicit income by way of trading prematurely of the firms’ public profits bulletins.

The SEC’s grievance, filed on September 27, 2024 within the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleges that, between roughly January 2019 and August 2020, Westbrook received unauthorized get admission to into the general public firms’ laptop methods—previous to the firms’ profits bulletins—by way of resetting passwords of senior degree executives’ accounts.

As a results of those hacks, Westbrook deceptively got subject matter nonpublic data that he used to business within the securities of the 5 public firms previous to the discharge of a minimum of 14 profits bulletins.

The SEC’s grievance charges Westbrook with violating the antifraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The grievance seeks a last judgment ordering Westbrook to pay civil consequences, ordering him to go back his ill-gotten positive factors with prejudgment pastime, and enjoining him from committing long term violations of the charged provisions of the federal securities rules.