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    British Man Charged in U.S. for ‘Hack-to-Trade’ Scheme

    A British national has been arrested and charged by U.S. authorities for allegedly hacking into the systems of five companies to gain insider information about their earnings, resulting in illegal profits of $3.75 million through preemptive trading.

    Robert Westbrook, 39, from London, faces a series of serious charges, including securities fraud, wire fraud, and five counts of computer fraud, as outlined in a criminal indictment unsealed on Friday. The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing his extradition to face these charges. Westbrook was arrested this week in the U.K. and is also subject to related civil charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). His attorney has yet to be identified.

    Although the companies involved were not explicitly named in court documents, details within the SEC complaint hint at major firms, including Tupperware, Tutor Perini, Guidewire Software, Murphy USA, and Lumentum Holdings.

    According to authorities, Westbrook’s scheme operated from January 2019 to May 2020, during which he reportedly hacked into the email accounts of company executives, gaining access to material nonpublic information ahead of at least 14 earnings announcements. He allegedly set up automatic forwarding rules to send content from the executives’ emails directly to his own accounts.

    Jorge Tenreiro, acting chief of the SEC’s crypto assets and cyber unit, described Westbrook’s actions as “sophisticated international hacking,” involving anonymous email accounts, VPN services, and the use of bitcoin to obfuscate his activities. Notably, none of the five companies has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Westbrook’s actions.

    If convicted, Westbrook faces severe penalties, with securities fraud and wire fraud charges carrying maximum sentences of 20 years each, while the computer fraud charges could lead to an additional five years per count.

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