Anthony Elgindy (November 28, 1967 – July 23, 2015), was an American

stock broker A stockbroker is a regulated broker, broker-dealer, or registered investment adviser (in the United States) who may provide financial advisory and investment management services and execute transactions such as the purchase or sale of stocks and ...

, and financial commentator who founded Pacific Equity Investigations. Elgindy gained a reputation for his "investigations" of companies. Towards the end of his life, Elgindy was convicted of

insider trading Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information ...

and served seven years in federal prison. Born in Egypt as Amr Ibrahim Elgindy, Elgindy was known professionally as "Anthony@Pacific", the " Internet's most theatrical short-seller".

Biography

Elgindy originally worked as a car salesman in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. In 1988, he became a

stock trader A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading equity securities and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an invest ...

working for

penny stock Penny stocks are common shares of small public companies that trade for less than one dollar per share. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uses the term "Penny stock" to refer to a security, a financial instrument which represents a ...

brokerage A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...

Blinder Robinson. He later moved to another brokerage house, Armstrong McKinley. When Armstrong McKinley came under investigation for taking

bribes Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corru ...

to recommend

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

, Elgindy provided incriminating information to prosecutors. In 1995, Elgindy became a

short seller In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of a more conventional "long" position, where the investor will profit if the value of the a ...

Insider trading

After 2000, Elgindy began working with

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

agent Jeff Broyer, and gave him information on companies he believed were engaging in illegal activity. Broyer used FBI databases to search for any investigations into those companies by the FBI or the SEC. Broyer then funneled information on any pending investigations to Elgindy, who used that information to short sell the stock. An investigation uncovered his relationship with Broyer, who resigned and began working directly for Elgindy. Broyer's girlfriend, FBI agent Lynn Wingate, continuing to funnel information to Elgindy. In 2002, Elgindy, Broyer and Wingate were indicted for their roles in the scheme. In 2003, the

National Association of Securities Dealers The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is a private American corporation that acts as a self-regulatory organization (SRO) that regulates member brokerage firms and exchange markets. FINRA is the successor to the National Associati ...

(NASD) ruled that Elgindy and his firm Key West Securities "engaged in a manipulative scheme in 1997 to inflate artificially the share price of Saf T Lok, Inc. through the entering of fraudulent quotations in the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

system, selling the stock short at the artificially high prices, and then taking active steps to depress the share price of Saf T Lok through the dissemination of negative research comments." Elgindy and Key West Securities were fined $51,000 and had their NASD memberships revoked. In 2004, the SEC reversed the ban on appeal. In a superseding

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...

issued in January 2005, Elgindy was charged with

racketeering Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. Originally and of ...

securities fraud Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in los ...

and other crimes. This included his scheme to steal information about FBI and separate SEC investigations of various companies. After a four-month trial, Elgindy was convicted of insider trading in five stocks with illegal gains totaling about $66,000. Elgindy was sentenced to 11 years in

federal prison A federal prison is operated under the jurisdiction of a federal government as opposed to a state or provincial body. Federal prisons are used for convicts who violated federal law (U.S., Mexico), inmates considered dangerous (Brazil), or those s ...

. He was released in late 2013 after serving almost seven years. He committed suicide on July 23, 2015.

Biography

Insider trading

References

Further reading