Article: Eight arrests in Royal Mail text scam investigation

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Eight arrests in Royal Mail text scam investigation

BBC, 25 May 2021

The suspects were allegedly involved in sending fake messages, primarily posing as Royal Mail and asking people to pay a fee to retrieve a parcel.

The men were arrested in Birmingham, Coventry, London and Colchester, Essex, a specialist unit of the City of London and Metropolitan Police said. A man from London was charged with three offences and the others were released under investigation.

The charged man, from Enfield, will appear at Inner London Crown Court on 21 June. Continue reading “Article: Eight arrests in Royal Mail text scam investigation”

Article: Revisiting the Northern Bank robbery – the biggest heist in British history

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Revisiting the Northern Bank robbery – the biggest heist in British history

Steven Moore, 04 May 2021

The BBC is taking a fresh look at the biggest heist in British history – the Northern Bank Robbery.

Broadcast on BBC One NI on Monday (May 3) at 9pm, it tells the story of how the multi-million pound robbery played out in the days before Christmas 2004. In a sophisticated operation, the gang took two families hostage for 24 hours, forcing two bank employees to rob £26.5 million from the Belfast cash centre.

With exclusive access to new source material – including police 999 calls along with internal bank CCTV and court documents – they piece together what could have happened.

Through interviews with key players – in politics, policing and financial crime – they uncover what happened to the main suspects in the cross-border police investigation and ask whether the robbery may, inadvertently, have helped the peace process.

The film includes interviews with Bertie Ahern, former Taoiseach; Michael McDowell, former Irish Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform; Sir Hugh Orde, former Chief Constable PSNI; Dr Mitchell Reiss, US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland under the Bush administration; Tom Kelly, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s official spokesperson between 2001-7); and Peter Robinson, former leader of DUP and First Minister of NI.

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Article: Jury Awards AMS Sensors $86M In EDTX Trade Secrets Trial

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Jury Awards AMS Sensors $86M In EDTX Trade Secrets Trial

Ryan Davis, 16 April 2021

An Eastern District of Texas jury determined Friday that Renesas should pay damages of nearly $85.9 million in a trade secrets and contract suit brought by rival light sensor maker AMS Sensors, although a Renesas attorney insisted the award will ultimately be much lower.

The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for about seven hours over two days following a damages retrial that began April 5 in Sherman, Texas, before U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III.

A jury in a previous trial found in 2015 that Renesas Electronics America Inc. misappropriated AMS Sensors USA Inc. trade secrets and breached a confidentiality agreement after the two companies, which have both made light sensors for Apple’s iPhone, met to discuss a merger but never reached a deal. The Federal Circuit vacated the damages award in that case in 2018, leading to a retrial solely on damages.

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Article: JPMorgan is set to pay US$1B in record spoofing penalty

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JPMorgan is set to pay US$1B in record spoofing penalty

Ben Bain, Tom Schoenberg and Matt Robinson, 23 September 2020

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is poised to pay close to US$1 billion to resolve market manipulation investigations by U.S. authorities into its trading of metals futures and Treasury securities, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

The potential record for a settlement involving alleged spoofing could be announced as soon as this week, said the people who asked not to be named because the details haven’t yet been finalized. The accord would end probes by the Justice Department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission into whether traders on JPMorgan’s precious metals and treasuries desks rigged markets, two of the people said.

A penalty approaching US$1 billion would far exceed previous spoofing-related fines. It would also be on par with sanctions in many prior manipulation cases, including some brought several years ago against banks for allegedly rigging benchmark interest rates and foreign exchange markets.

Spoofing typically involves flooding derivatives markets with orders that traders don’t intend to execute to trick others into moving prices in a desired direction. The practice has become a focus for prosecutors and regulators in recent years after lawmakers specifically prohibited it in 2010. While submitting and then canceling orders isn’t illegal, it is unlawful as part of a strategy intended to dupe other traders.

It couldn’t be determined whether New York-based JPMorgan will face additional Justice Department penalties in court. Previous spoofing cases have been resolved without banks or trading firms pleading guilty to criminal charges. However, when prosecutors filed cases last year against individual JPMorgan traders they painted a grave picture of its precious metals desk, saying it operated as an illicit enterprise within the bank for almost a decade.

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