Trading Places

For Ken, life had changed significantly. He had gotten married, started a family and was living in suburban Long Island when, one day, he got a phone call from Matthew. Ken actually needed the extra money now, so the call from his old insider trading buddy was welcomed.  Matthew had recently been hired by a Virginia-based law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, working in mergers and acquisitions.  The insider information was about to start flowing again; they just had to get Garrett back on board.

Ken appealed to Garrett’s sense of friendship, mentioning he really needed the money to support his growing family. Although hesitant at first, Garrett eventually agreed to rejoin the team out of a sense of loyalty to his close friend.  The trio was back together and got ready to trade.

After Matthew’s scare with the SEC a few years prior, he went about gathering information much more covertly this time. He browsed his law firm’s document management system, looking for documents related to pending mergers or acquisitions.  He was careful not to open any of the documents and to look only at the titles and subject lines.  It was a more tedious process, but he knew if he opened any documents, it would create a record which could get back to the SEC.  Another new precaution for the trio this time around was using disposable cell phones for their clandestine conversations.

Caption: Garrett talks about the trio’s new use of cell phones in their scheme