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3 From JPMorgan Accused in Scheme to Game Precious Metals Market

By Katie Benner
Sept. 16, 2019

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors accused a JPMorgan Chase executive and two of his colleagues on Monday of manipulating commodities markets for nearly a decade, operating a “massive, multiyear scheme” that the Justice Department said was tantamount to a sprawling criminal enterprise.

Michael Nowak, the head of precious metals trading at JPMorgan and a bank managing director, and two others, Gregg Smith and Christopher Jordan, were accused of placing fake orders to buy and sell futures contracts — a practice called spoofing — to manipulate prices. That allowed the men and unidentified co-conspirators “to generate trading profits and avoid losses for themselves and other members of the precious metals desk,” the government said in its indictment.

The men operated their scheme from 2008 to 2016, generating millions of dollars in profits for the bank, Brian Benczkowski, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, told reporters on Monday.

The Justice Department charged the men under the federal government’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, under which prosecutors pursue people involved in an organization that perpetuates organized crime, including gangs and drug cartels. The law is commonly associated with the mafia, but it was used to pursue Wall Street traders in the 1990s.

Mr. Benczkowski said the Justice Department brought the case under the racketeering act because investigators had identified a pattern of widespread illegal activity, conducted over an eight-year span. “This is precisely the kind of conduct the RICO statute is meant to punish,” Mr. Benczkowski said.

David Meister and Jocelyn Strauber, lawyers for Mr. Nowak, said their client had done nothing wrong and called it “regrettable” that prosecutors had moved forward with a case against him. “We look forward to representing him at trial and expect him to be fully exonerated,” they said.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Jordan, who left JPMorgan in 2009, did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.


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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/business/jpmorgan-trading-fraud.html

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