New York (HedgeCo.Net) – A young science engineer whippersnapper, Yihau Pu, also known as “Ben” has been sentenced to three years in federal prison, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The prosecution said he “meticulously planned and brazenly executed” the theft of sensitive trade secrets from two former employers of a trading firm in New Jersey and Citadel, LLC, a Chicago-based hedge fund manager.
Pu bypassed Citadel’s security measures and stole thousands of files that contained Citadels’ alpha outputs. Pu then used those alphas in his own high frequency trading strategy for his own personal investment account in an effort to replicate Citadel’s trading for his own benefit. The Judge found that the crimes caused a total intended loss of approximately $12.2 million.
Pu, 27, currently of Waltham, Mass., and also known as “Ben Pu,” was ordered to begin serving his sentence on May 1, and was placed on three years of court supervision following his release from custody.
An associate of Pu’s, Sahil “Sonny” Uppal , also a former Citadel employee, had pleaded guilty to obstructing the investigation into the theft, and he was was placed on three years’ probation.
U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle, who imposed the sentences, also ordered Pu and Uppal each to pay restitution totaling $759,649 to Citadel to cover the cost of its investigation. Both defendants pleaded guilty last August in Federal Court in Chicago.
Alex Akesson
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