Indian-origin man held for insider trading
An Indian-origin hedge fund portfolio manager will appear in the Manhattan federal court after he was arrested last week and charged with participating in a $ 276 million insider trading scheme involving Alzheimer’s disease drug trial.
Charges against Mathew Martoma, 38, have been brought by Manhattan's top federal prosecutor, India-born Preet Bharara, who has led the government's massive crackdown on insider trading and won convictions against prominent Wall Street executives like ex-Goldman director Rajat Gupta and billionaire hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.
Martoma was arrested at his home in Boca Raton, Florida, last week. He has been charged with using material, non-public information that he received from a doctor on the clinical trial of an Alzheimer’s disease drug to make profits and avoid losses for his hedge fund.
A report in “The New York Times” cited legal records and said Martoma is the son of Indian immigrants and was born Ajai Mathew Mariamdani Thomas. He changed his name in 2003.
He was raised in Florida and spent a year and a half at Harvard Law School, from where he dropped out to earn a business degree at Stanford University.
