Surprise, surprise, A New Wave of Insider Trading is sweeping the world. The recent spike in the volume of take-over bids is encouraging waves of brazen insider action, and the regulators are scampering to catch up. Some high-profile professionals — lawyers, investment bankers and traders — have admitted or are accused of scheming to grab illegal profits. In the past three months, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed more than half a dozen cases that charge professionals at top brokerage houses, hedge funds and even some top accounting firms with insider-trading plots.
Humans are nothing if not predictable. Many insider's get away safely with tidy profits from this activity every week. Consider that Michael Milken “the junk bond king” of the 70's and 80's was charged with 98 counts of fraud and racketeering in 1989, pled to 6 violations and served only 2 of a 10 year sentence, keeping the vast majority of his assets completely in tact. With a net worth estimated at 2.1 billion in 2007, Mr. Milken ranks 458th of the 793 billionaires in the world.
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