Two men from Brooklyn have been charged with insider trading after allegedly stealing confidential corporate information to make illegal profits. According to a report from Bloomberg, the pair earned around $1 million by accessing sensitive data from companies before it was made public.
Justin Chen, 31, and Jun Zhen, 29, worked at EdgarAgents.com, a private company that handles SEC filings for businesses. Chen served as an operator and assistant manager, while Zhen worked as a typeset manager and operator.
Authorities say they used their positions to secretly gather non-public information about several companies, including Purple Innovation, Ondas Holdings, SigmaTron, and Signing Day Sports, and then traded on that information to make quick profits.
However, former SEC official Marc Fagel reacted to the news and wrote on social media, “Misleading headline. They don’t work for the SEC; they worked for a private firm that helps companies with their EDGAR filings.”
Prosecutors revealed that between March and June 2025, they used secret merger information to buy stocks before the news was public. Chen and Zhen placed trades within minutes and hours of each other, which shows that they were involved in a coordinated scheme.
According to a federal complaint, Chen and Zhen bought the stocks before merger news broke and quickly sold them after the announcements for big gains. They reportedly made over $1 million in profits from the trades. The FBI agents arrested Chen and Zhen on Friday night at the John F. Kennedy International Airport, just as they were about to fly to Hong Kong.
They are now facing securities fraud charges that carry up to 25 years in prison. A judge ordered them held without bail after they appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Saturday.
In related news, Terren Peizer, former CEO of Ontrak and former protégé of junk bond king Michael Milken, was recently sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for insider trading. He was fined $5.25 million and ordered to forfeit over $12.7 million in profits.
Peizer was found guilty of misusing SEC Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, rules that were meant to protect company insiders from fraud claims. He used them to sell $20 million in Ontrak shares before bad news about a major client, Cigna, was made public.
Justin Chen (31) and Jun Zhen (29) from Brooklyn, who worked at EdgarAgents.com, are accused of insider trading. They allegedly used their positions to steal confidential corporate information before it was public, profiting around $1 million from illegal stock trades.
Yes, this insider trading case could prompt companies, especially those relying on third-party firms for SEC filings, to review and potentially enhance their internal controls and security protocols for confidential information. It might also lead to stricter due diligence on external vendors handling sensitive pre-public data.
This scandal could push the SEC to strengthen regulations concerning private firms that handle sensitive corporate data for public companies. We might see new rules imposing more rigorous security, compliance, and oversight requirements on such third-party service providers to prevent future data misappropriation and insider trading.
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