Forex Marketz Daily Forex News – Fully Markets Update
Maltese Prime Broker EXANTE Implicated in 0M Insider Trading Scheme
Malta regulated prime broker, EXANTE is allegedly involved in one of the largest financial cybercrime networks of all times. Dozens of traders from around the world, who seems to be linked to a hub in Ukraine, illegally traded on insider information stolen by hackers from newswires.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed fraud charges against over thirty people yesterday for being involved in the crime ring, and relieved that they were generating more than $100 million in illegal profits.
According to the charges, Exante Ltd. holds proprietary trading accounts at Interactive Brokers and at Lek Securities, which were used in connection with the scheme to make trades resulting in approximately $24.5 million in ill-gotten gains.
Alexey Kirienko
Exante is owned by Lartemisis Holdings Ltd which shares the same address as Portomaso Tower in St Julian’s, Malta. Its founder and CEO is Alexey Kirienko, which in 2007 founded a public Global Hedge Capital Fund. According to his past description, the hedge fund contributed key technological infrastructure and knowledge base for the prime brokerage company, EXANTE Ltd.
In its complaint, the SEC said that several of Exante’s directors are also owners of defendant Global Hedge Capital Fund Ltd., and the two entities share employees. “Exante and Global Hedge frequently made illicit trades in the same securities, on the same days and around the same time, and often through the same IP addresses,” the charges read.
According to local reports in Malta, three of the company’s five directors have Maltese addresses; Bruno Cakans, Gatis Eglitis and Alexey Kirienko. The two other directors; Anatoli Knyazev and Vladimir Masliakov live in Moscow, Russia.
