The pandemic forced millions of people to share working spaces with their partners or spouses while shut in their homes. For some, such as former FBI trainee Seth Markin, the close proximity led to temptation.
Markin’s case is one of a number brought by US authorities against people who traded on secret data gleaned from their partners while working from home. Less than a month ago, a Texas man pleaded guilty to securities fraud for making almost $2 million from information he learned about an acquisition target of BP Plc from listening to his wife’s conversations with colleagues.
He said he then learned through his own research that the company had recently completed a successful trial of a drug to treat lupus. Over the next month, he said, he engaged in “otherwise innocuous” conversations with his girlfriend that led him to believe the merger had been cleared. Markin had asked for the same sentence as Wong, saying he got details of the deal as the result of chance and hadn’t actively sought most of the confidential information that he obtained. ADVERTISEMENT CONTINUE READING BELOW “Seth was motivated by factors other than greed,” his lawyers had said.