The insider trader who pled guilty Tuesday leaked details about the iPhone 4 and the iPad
The wiretap caught it all.
Walter Shimoon, then a director at Flextronics (FLEX), a Singapore-based company that supplies Apple (AAPL) with camera and battery components, was being paid up to $200 per hour to leak insider information to a shadowy group of hedge funds and so-called expert networks.
In an Oct. 1, 2009 phone call secretly taped by the FBI, he gave his contact at a New York-based hedge fund called Kingdom Ridge Capital some third quarter iPhone sales figures that wouldn't be released for another two and a half weeks.
Then, according to his indictment, he dropped two bombshells:
According to Reuters, court documents unsealed Tuesday showed Kingdom Ridge making $560,000 in profits in October 2009 trading on secrets provided by Walter Shimoon.
Shimoon, 39, pled guilty Tuesday to two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud and one count of securities fraud. Sentencing is scheduled for July 8, 2013. He faces up to 30 years in prison.
By Electronista's count, he's the 13th of 14 charged with insider trading in what Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has described as "a corrupt network of insiders" serving as consultants "who sold out their employers by stealing and then peddling their valuable inside information."
Moves to hide ocean shipping data from competitors and prying reporters, according to trade privacy group
In preparation for the scheduled March delivery of Apple's (AAPL) new iPad tablet computer, the company has blocked its bills of lading and other import records from public access, according to a report issued Thursday by Trade Privacy, a trade data protection company based in Reston, VA.
"Apple is the only major electronics company so far MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 18, 2010 10:43 AM ET