"The complaint also alleges that L. Palmer later reimbursed the client by check for the purchase cost of the options, scribbling in the check's memo line the words, "Blue Horseshoe," an apparent reference to the coded language used to convey inside information in the 1987 movie Wall Street."<p>How can people be so idiotic?
The penalty against normal everyday people like these people seems much stiffer than the penalties levied at sophisticated financial professionals. The traders operating hard-to-prove frauds with a "nod and a wink" approval from their supervisors at large banks and hedge funds always seem to be allowed to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains and if caught, give back only a tiny fraction of it, without even admitting guilt.
I worked for Equifax decades ago and the amount of scamming going on was impressive. People would take part time jobs just to alter their credit scores and histories in the system then quit or get fired. They would be found out BUT Equifax couldn’t change the info back for some reason. I never found out why not. I assume it’s because they’re incompetent!
The part that keeps tripping these people up is involving even more real people in their crimes.<p>Synthetic identity fraud is probably a better way to go about being a criminal if you insist on participating via the stock market.<p>You don’t exactly need a supercomputer to correlate OTM options events for a single security. It’s way more traceable than most probably realize.
"The SEC claims that the illegal trading by L. Palmer's former client and J. Palmer's friend netted approximately $35,000 and $73,000 in profits"... The SEC here going for the big whales. /s
Huh, does that mean if I steal a $300 tv and get caught I just have to return the TV and pay a $600 fine? I didn't know that was an option. I thought that you had to go to jail or something like that?
The SEC cannot bring criminal charges. Honestly it's a fucking joke, seems like it was worth it for them. They can just reshuffle their cash in some trusts or crypto or whatever and good luck getting it, they won't be behind bars.