Toomre Capital Markets LLC

In the spring of 2006, several young investment bankers connected with or then working for Goldman Sachs or Merrill Lynch were arrested on charges of insider trading and conspiracy. The primary players in this conspiracy were David Pajcin, Eugene Plotkin and Stanislav Shpigelman. At the time of Patjin’s arrest in November 2005, TCM wrote the post More Insider Trading Alleged re: "Inside Wall Street" BusinessWeek Column, thinking perhaps naively that gaining early access to the “Inside Wall Street” column was the extent of their malfeasance. When the other two were arrested, there were was much gossip and discussion about young investment bankers, Russian steam baths, insider trading, information moles, and even strippers (such as Pajcin’s curvaceous girlfriend, Monika Vujovic).

In the past ten days, two lengthy articles have been published that detail just how calculating and audacious this ring of conspirators were. The first was written by Paul Harris and published by the Dawn Group of Newspapers in England under the title The Great Swindle. The second was authored by Fortune magazine reporter Barney Gimbel and posted with the title Partners in Crime on the Fortune website on September 22, 2006. Both are well worth reading to gain a fuller understanding just how brazen this group’s malfeasance was. As Peter Lattman writes in the Wall Street Journal Law Blog,

According to SEC’s Northeast director Mark Schonfeld, Pajcin and Plotikin ran “one of the most widespread, varied, and premeditated insider trading rings we have ever prosecuted.” Writes Gimbel: “Their total take was not enormous — only about $7 million — but for sheer brazenness, Schonfeld says, Plotkin and Pajcin have few peers.”

Toomre Capital Markets could not agree more with reporter Barney Gimbel. These criminals were brazen and deserve all of the punishment that hopefully will be coming their way in the coming days and months. What an amazing story about the complete lack of ethical behavior!!