Over the weekend this story came to light:
In one of the most serious insider trading cases in the nation’s history, the Australian Federal Police allege 26-year-old Lukas Kamay, an employee with National Australia Bank, offered up to $60,000 to 24-year-old ABS analyst Christopher Hill as a bribe to provide market-sensitive data before publication.
Mr Kamay is accused of then using the building approvals, retail trade and employment data to take favourable positions in online trading of foreign exchange derivatives on three separate occasions, with the last trade occurring as late as Thursday this week. Mr Kamay faces seven charges relating to conspiracy to commit insider trading, insider trading and dealing in the proceeds of crime.
Mr Hill faces four charges including conspiracy to commit insider trading, receiving a bribe, abuse of public office and dealing in the proceeds of crime.
Police allege the pair made $7 million overall from the trades with Mr Kamay pocketing the majority of the proceeds.
I have no idea if it’s related but last week’s lousy retail sales release saw some very weird action as the dollar plunged seconds before it was released and then rose afterwards despite missing consensus big time. Could be coincidence, or not.
Anyway, there are so many juicy glimpses of Australiana at work here it’s irresistible. From this morning:
…Mr Kerr, the founder and owner of Pepperstone Financial, looked up Mr Kamay’s profile via his gold LinkedIn account and found he was friends with an Australian Bureau of Statistics employee, Christopher Hill, through Monash University in Melbourne.
“That was when it suddenly clicked that this guy was only trading ABS data and had a man on the inside,” Mr Kerr told Fairfax Media on Sunday.
…Mr Kerr immediately rang ASIC but was told the allegations were outside its jurisdiction. “They said contact the AFP, I think we may have rang the wrong part of ASIC, I think we contacted our licensing authority when we probably should have contacted market abuses or something,” Mr Kerr said.
…The Australian Federal Police and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission have frozen the men’s assets, which include Mr Kamay’s purchase of a $2.4 million three-bedroom loft apartment in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Albert Park which was designed by twins Alisa and Lysandra Fraser as part of the reality television show The Block.
Dodgy dealing. ASIC asleep. Real estate celebrity. Priceless.
