UK Hacker Arrested for $3.75 Million Insider Trading Scheme

In the United Kingdom, 39-year-old Robert Westbrook has been arrested, accused of hacking into five public companies to obtain confidential information about corporate earnings. According to the investigation, these actions enabled him to earn approximately $3.75 million through stock market trades.

As reported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Westbrook had been breaching corporate systems from January 2019 to August 2020, gaining access to information prior to 14 different earnings announcements. The breaches involved resetting passwords for Office365 accounts belonging to top executives. Once he gained access to corporate emails, he used automatic email forwarding to send communications to his anonymous accounts, allowing him to monitor internal correspondence.

Based on the acquired information, Westbrook executed stock market trades, buying and selling shares before the companies’ earnings reports were made public. U.S. authorities are seeking his extradition to face charges of fraud, insider trading, and computer-related crimes.

If convicted, Westbrook faces multiple years of imprisonment for each charge brought against him. U.S. investigators also revealed that he attempted to conceal his identity by using anonymous email accounts, VPN services, and Bitcoin transactions.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is demanding that Westbrook return the $3.75 million he gained, as well as pay fines, the amounts of which have yet to be disclosed.

This case is not unique in this category of crime. In September of last year, Russian citizen Vladislav Klyushin was sentenced to nine years in prison for a similar scheme involving illegal trades worth approximately $93 million.