Cryptic messages, cute nicknames, and millions in profits —a pair of bankers and lovers allegedly took part in a massive insider-trading ring

Benjamin Taylor and Darina Windsor worked for global investment banks, shared a London apartment, and called each other "Pops" and Popsy" in emails, the US government said.
They received more than $1 million in cash, trips, expensive watches, designer clothes, and other luxuries in exchange for inside information, prosecutors said.
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The banking sector might have its very own Bonnie and Clyde, minus the car chases and dramatic deaths.

A pair of investment bankers and lovers sold confidential information about corporate deals as part of a "large-scale, international insider-trading ring" that generated tens of millions of dollars in profits, federal prosecutors said in an indictment filed in Manhattan and unsealed this week .

Benjamin Taylor and Darina Windsor worked for global investment banks, shared a London apartment, and called each other "Pops" and Popsy" in emails, the US government said. The story was first reported by Bloomberg .

They sold inside information about 22 companies including Merck, Amgen, and Celgene to two middlemen between late 2012 and early 2018, prosecutors said. The intermediaries then passed on the tips to securities traders, including one in Switzerland who leaked the stolen details to a journalist and made trades that netted him $1 million in profit when news of the deal became public, the government said.

Taylor allegedly used burner phones to communicate with middlemen, and exchanged cryptic emails with Windsor.

"Once upon a time, there was a Pops searching for Truffles in the Forest," Windsor titled an email to Taylor with confidential details about Onyx Pharmaceuticals attached prosecutors said. Onyx was acquired by Amgen for $8.5 billion in 2013.

Taylor and Windsor received more than $1 million in cash, trips, expensive watches, designer clothes, and other luxuries in exchange for the information, prosecutors said.

The charges against them are part of a federal probe into investors in Europe and the Middle East who have netted tens of millions of dollars by making trades before deal news breaks, Bloomberg said.

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