Secrets about Apple Inc.’s iPhone were among insider trading tips that led to the arrests Thursday of three employees at public companies and a sales executive at a California expert-networking firm, authorities said.
The new arrests boosted to six the number of people detained in a wide-ranging Wall Street insider trading probe.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara portrayed James Fleishman, 41, a networking executive who worked at Mountain View, California-based Primary Global Research, as central to the scheme that led to the latest arrests. Fleishman was charged with wire fraud and conspiracy for providing confidential information to the firm’s clients, including hedge funds, the prosecutor said.
A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan said some of the tips resulted from inside information that was shared about highly confidential Apple sales forecasts information, new product features for the iPhone and a top-secret project known internally at Apple as “K48,” which became the iPad, launched this year.
Others charged were Mark Anthony Longoria, 44, of Round Rock, Texas; Walter Shimoon, 39, of San Diego; and Manosha Karunatilaka, 37, of Marlborough, Massachusetts. They were charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, according to papers filed in federal court in Manhattan.
The new federal insider trading probe targets industry analysts, experts and consultants.
In a release, Bharara said the charges allege that a “corrupt network of insiders at some of the world’s leading technology companies served as so-called `consultants’ who sold out their employers by stealing and then peddling their valuable inside information.”
He said the allegations describe criminal conduct that went “well beyond any legitimate information-sharing or good faith business practice.”
Longoria worked at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. as a supply chain manager, Shimoon worked at Flextronics International Limited as senior director of business development and Karunatilaka worked as an account manager at…