Do you all remember the Post-It note eating fools the SEC accused of insider trading?
Well, now the SEC has charged the alleged "middleman," who was the one the SEC claimed was eating the Post-it notes with insider-y things written on them back in March though they didn't reveal his name at the time.
Today's press release doesn't hesistate to name this pica-suffering middleman:
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a Brooklyn man with facilitating a $5.6 million insider trading scheme that typically involved the passing of illegal tips via napkins or post-it notes at Grand Central Terminal.
Earlier this year, the SEC charged a stockbroker and a law firm managing clerk with insider trading and alleged they were connected by a mutual friend who served as a “middleman” in an effort to keep the two unlinked. In a separate complaint filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the SEC identifies Frank Tamayo as that middleman. The SEC alleges that Tamayo received material nonpublic information from Steven Metro about 13 impending corporate deals involving clients of the law firm where Metro worked. Tamayo then tipped his stockbroker Vladimir Eydelman, who used the confidential information to illegally trade for himself and for Tamayo and other customers. Tamayo allocated a portion of his ill-gotten profits for eventual payback to Metro for the inside information.
“As the middleman, Tamayo was the firewall between Metro and Eydelman. Metro had the information, Eydelman did the trading, and Tamayo kept them apart,” said Robert Cohen, Co-Deputy Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit. “But they were wrong in believing that this would stop the SEC from detecting their scheme.”
You see how well all of this turned out for everyone, except for 3M company, which profited off the sale of Post-it notes which Tamayo later ate. That can't be good for you.
