International stock trading scheme hacked into SEC database

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Jay Clayton, chairman of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaks during an SEC open meeting in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, April 18, 2018.

Yuri Gripas | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Jay Clayton, chairman of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaks during an SEC open meeting in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, April 18, 2018.

Federal prosecutors unveiled charges in an international stock-trading scheme that involved hacking into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR corporate filing system.

The scheme allegedly netted $4.1 million for fraudsters from the U.S., Russia and Ukraine. Using 157 corporate earnings announcements, the group was able to execute trades on material nonpublic information. Most of those filings were “test filings,” which corporations upload to the SEC’s website.

The charges were announced Tuesday by Craig Carpenito, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, alongside the SEC, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service, which investigates financial crimes.

The scheme involves seven individuals and operated from May to at…

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