Insider Trading is a serious crime. US authorities have recently unearthed an insider trading ring that was using Ukraine hackers to get sensitive information. Exposing a new front in cybercrime, U.S. authorities broke up an alleged insider trading ring that relied on computer hackers to pilfer corporate press announcements and then profited by trading on the sensitive information, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Officials have identified nine participants who operated the scheme and are expected to be charged Tuesday by officials in Brooklyn, New York and New Jersey.
The hackers would help these people know in advance insider knowledge which was used to make a profit of $30 million.
Update: Insider trading is widespread and prevalent and a challenge for the regulatory authorities to monitor. I watched this very good PBS documentary: To Catch A Trader. This is the story of a very rich hedge fund manager who was involved in insider trading. FBI and SEC were after him for many years. In this documentary you will get an indepth view of how insider trading works on Wall Street.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jnihc4rzFw
Watch the documentary. It is informative and educative. Insider trading rackets are big and wide spread. You get the story on how a few hedge funds were engaged in insider trading and how they were caught and gully managers prosecuted, convicted and jailed. For markets to work efficiently information should flow freely and there should be no insider information that is available to a few investor and not available to the rest of the investors. Watch the above documentary and you will learn a lot of things how expert circles work and how they pass on insider information about their companies before hand to hedge fund managers and how these hedge fund managers pay high fees to get that information. When a hedge fund is making extra normal returns month after month, it is a signal that something is wrong. Soon these hedge funds start getting attention from regulatory authorities. Investigating an insider trading scam can take many months that can last a few years.