Anthony Elgindy
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

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 an ...
, 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 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 eighth most populous city in the United State ...
. 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 con ...
Blinder Robinson. He later moved to another brokerage house, Armstrong McKinley. When Armstrong McKinley came under investigation for taking bribes to recommend stock, 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 ...
.


Insider trading

After 2000, Elgindy began working with
FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
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 Associat ...
(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 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 person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of a ...
issued in January 2005, Elgindy was charged with racketeering,
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 lo ...
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. He was released in late 2013 after serving almost seven years. He committed suicide on July 23, 2015.


References


Further reading

*Linda Christiansen, "When Telling the Truth is a Crime, Elgindy Faces Charges that He Manipulated Stocks with Accurate Information," ''The Wall Street Journal'', November 1, 2004 *Conor Dougherty, ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'', "SEC overturns ban on stock trader , Elgindy's firm also ordered reinstated," March 11, 2004 *John R. Emshwiller, "A Felon's Wife Picks Up the Pieces Of Her Luxury Life," ''The Wall Street Journal'', November 29, 2005 *John R. Emshwiller, "Online Maverick Sells the Internet Short," ''The Wall Street Journal'', July 22, 1999 *John R. Emshwiller, ''Scam Dogs and Mo-Mo Mamas: Inside the Wild and Woolly World of Internet Stock Trading'' *Gary Wolf and Joey Anuff, "Dumb Money: Adventures of a Day Trader," ''Wired'' (Apr. 2004) *David Cohen, ''Chasing the Red, White, and Blue'' * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Elgindy, Anthony 1967 births Living people American people of Egyptian descent