Ex-NYSE Director Provided Inside Leaks, U.K. Man Told Informant
1 November 2012, by Christie Smythe (Bloomberg)

(Richard A. "Dick" Grasso ?)

Excerpt:bloomberg

A U.K. man who pleaded guilty to conspiring in an insider-trading scheme told a government informant that illegal tips he got could be traced by to an ex- New York Stock Exchange director, according to court papers.

Taiyyib Ali Munir pleaded guilty to conspiracy in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, on Oct. 15. Munir, who lives in London and worked in the financial industry, admitted that he agreed to obtain and sell confidential earnings reports of public companies from December 2011 to July 2012.

Munir, 30, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Levy that he “spoke with a person located in New York who said he could obtain earnings reports for companies before public release of that information,” according to a transcript of his plea hearing.

Munir didn’t identify the person at his plea. He is quoted in court papers as saying one of his sources of inside information got leaks from a former NYSE director.

The guilty plea came as part of a broader U.S. probe into an insider-trading scheme allegedly stretching from Central Asia to New York.

Prosecutors say Munir funneled tips to the informant, who in 2010 and 2011 was managing accounts of a former Central Asian official and who isn’t identified in the complaint.

The former government official was identified by the Wall Street Journal as Maksim Bakiyev, son of Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the ex-president of Kyrgyzstan.

The newspaper didn’t identify its sources in the Oct. 17 story. The elder Bakiyev was ousted in an April 2010 coup and has taken refuge in Belarus.