Federal prosecutors in New York charged three investors on Thursday with an insider trading scheme in which they allegedly made more than $22 million in illegal profits by acting on information about a plan to take former president Donald Trump’s media company public.
The three men — Michael Shvartsman, Gerald Shvartsman and Bruce Garelick — were investors in a special purpose acquisition corporation called Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which had plans to take public Trump’s company Trump Media & Technology Group. As investors, they learned of the confidential plans for Trump’s media company and they were prohibited by non-disclosure agreements from disclosing or using the information to buy or sell securities, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.
The defendants used the information to buy millions of dollars of securities in the corporation “so that they could be in a position to profit after the merger was announced publicly,” according to the indictment. Prosecutors said in court papers that the defendants also disclosed the confidential information about the upcoming merger to their friends and employees, who bought tens of thousands of securities in the corporation.
Prosecutors charged the men with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and nine counts of securities fraud.
The defendants are set to make their initial court appearances in the Southern District of Florida on Thursday afternoon, according to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office.
