A Credit Suisse investment banker was charged today in an insider trading scheme linked to acquisitions involving nine publicly traded United States companies that netted a co-conspirator more than $7 million.
The banker, Hafiz Muhammad Zubair Naseem, a 37-year-old Pakistani who worked for Credit Suisse’s Global Energy Group in New York, has been charged with one count of conspiracy and 25 counts of securities fraud, prosecutors said in a complaint.
The complaint says that between April 2006 and February 2007 Mr. Naseem tipped off a co-conspirator about acquisitions involving Northwestern Corporation, Energy Partners, Veritas DGC, Jacuzzi Brands, Trammell Crow, Hydril Company, Caremark Rx, John H. Harland Company, and TXU Corporation.
“Because many of the subject transactions were staffed by members of the Global Energy Group, Naseem had access to information about these transactions by virtue of his membership in the Global Energy Group,” the complaint said.
It said Mr. Naseem’s desk was also near a printer used for some of the nonenergy deals that he is accused of giving tip-offs about.
“Naseem regularly and repeatedly called a co-conspirator and provided him with material nonpublic information regarding the subject transactions,” according to the complaint, which referred to the co-conspirator as “CC-1.”
“CC-1 executed dozens of securities transactions, including trades in an offshore account, based on Credit Suisse Inside Information; CC-1 profited from his trading in each of the Subject Securities and earned total profits in excess of $7.5 million from the scheme,” it said.
Mr. Naseem is due to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Friday.
Source: The New York Times