|  | | 2009 News and Press Releases | | |
HEADLINE NEWS:
Shades of Sopranos in Galleon Case, Accused Suspects In Hedge Fund Insider Trading Scandal Sounded, Acted Like Mobsters, Investigators Say
Steve Eder
Reuters. November 5, 2009
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EXCERPT: Zvi Goffer could have passed for Tony Soprano when he warned confederates in his alleged insider-trading ring that “someone's going to jail.” Don't be too obvious about making big money, he said in a cell phone conversation intercepted by investigators in February, 2008. “Someone's going to jail, going directly to jail, so don't let it be you, okay?” Mr. Goffer said, according to a criminal complaint. “That's a ticket right to the (expletive) Big House.” According to federal prosecutors, Mr. Goffer was the boss of an insider trading operation that paid sources for non-public information. He and 13 others were charged on Thursday as the scandal centred on Mr. Goffer's former employer, hedge fund Galleon Group, widened dramatically. A criminal complaint naming Mr. Goffer, head of the trading firm Incremental Capital, and his alleged accomplices reads like a script for TV dramas like The Wire or The Sopranos, in which drug and Mafia criminals try to stay one step ahead of the law. Federal prosecutor Preet Bharara told a news conference that investigators resorted to wire taps and other methods “traditionally reserved for the mob and narcotics traffickers” when the accused began “taking a page from the drug dealers' playbook [and] deliberately used anonymous, hard-to-trace, pre-paid cellphones in order to avoid detection.” Calls recorded by law enforcement officials were littered with nicknames like “the Greek” and “the Rat,” and even jokes about getting information from a guy fixing a pothole. Current and past targets were code-named the “Hilton hit” and the “Apple.” There was talk about “cash lying around,” and investigators observed what they believed were hand-offs of white bags and cases packed with cash. |
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