Indian among seven charged in Dell insider trading case

New York: A former Indian employee of computer company Dell is among the seven persons charged by federal authorities here in a massive insider trading case in which they made USD 62 million of illegal profits by trading in the shares of Dell.

Sandeep Goyal, an associate analyst for a New York asset management firm, had worked at Dell’s office in Texas. He has pleaded guilty and is cooperating in the investigation, authorities said.

The FBI today arrested four people from Boston to Los Angeles in the insider trading case, as part of the government’s crackdown that has netted big Wall Street names like hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam and former McKinsey head Rajat Gupta.

Apart from Goyal, two other people named in the criminal complaint ? Spyridon Adondakis, a former Level Global technology analyst known as Sam and Jesse Tortora, a former Diamondback Capital Management analyst are cooperating with the investigation.

Those arrested are Anthony Chiasson, co-founder of the Level Global hedge fund who surrendered in New York, Todd Newman, a former trader at Diamondback in Boston, and Jon Horvath, who worked at Sigma Capital Management.

In Los Angeles, authorities arrested Danny Kuo, a vice president and fund manager at the Whittier Trust Company.

FBI’s Assistant Director in Charge Janice Fedarcyk said the seven men, “connected by friendship” exploited quarterly earnings data from Dell.

In particular, Goyal passed along Dell quarterly earnings information to Tortora and Newman and in return Tortora and Newman arranged to pay Goyal a total of $175,000 in 2008 and early 2009, using “soft dollars” and an intermediary to conceal the deal," Fedarcyk said.

PTI