If you have heard people in New York talk about white collar crime, you have likely heard references to things like embezzlement, money laundering or fraud. Another type of alleged white collar crime is insider trading. This particular offense can sometimes be hard to identify and may make it hard for people to avoid being charged with this crime even if they had no idea they were potentially doing something illegal.
As explained by Money Crashers, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has over the years broadened the scope of what might be considered insider trading. The purpose of this is to cast a wider net to catch potential offenders. One of the things that may be a factor in an insider trading allegation is the active trading of securities based on information that was not common knowledge or publicly available at the time.
If someone learns about something from a colleague, friend or family member, they might not necessarily know that the information is not public. If they then trade based on this data, they risk putting themselves in a position to be charged with a crime unknowingly. This makes it important for people to ask a lot of questions about facts they learn prior to making financial trading decisions on that information.
If you would like to learn more about insider trading and what types of activities or situations might contribute to allegations of this action, please feel free to visit the insider trading defense page of our New York white collar criminal defense website.