3 Chinese citizens charged with hacking merger-lawyers for trading tips

There were emails stolen to gain knowledge about stocks.
(Image credit: iStock)

Manhattan federal prosecutors have charged three Chinese citizens with trading on information they hacked from top merger-advising law firms in New York. The three men allegedly targeted at least seven firms, and made more than $4 million buying shares of companies in deals that were underway, then selling the stock after the mergers were announced and the stocks jumped, according to an indictment unsealed this week. The men managed to steal the emails of lawyers working on mergers from at least two of the targeted firms. You can read more about the alleged hacking at The New York Times.

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Harold Maass

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at TheWeek.com. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 launch of the U.S. print edition. Harold has worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, Fox News, and ABC News. For several years, he wrote a daily round-up of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and two sons.