US Charges English Twins Over $1.2m 'Stock Robot' Fraud

peetm writes "Twin brothers from England face U.S. civil charges for allegedly defrauding investors out of $1.2m (£745,000) through a bogus stock-picking robot. The twins, Alexander and Thomas Hunter, were just 16 years old when they devised the scam — which fooled around 75,000 people, according to U.S. officials."

perfect

[roman_mir]

they should be hired to run the government programs, such as health insurance, social security, etc. In fact Strategic Hazard Intervention Economics Logistics Directorate agency could be created with all of these guys, including Bernie Madoff as the program's director.

Re:Had to read the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nope"

Yes they did.
GS recommended and sold products that they internally classified as "shitty" - while at the same time they betted on the dropping of value of those product. As expected the value of those products did drop, GS clients lost big and GS itself won big.
It's insider trading at the highest level.

Sen. Levin Grills Goldman Sachs Exec On "Shitty Deal" E-mail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLx2Xc1EXLg

unregulated

[Tom]

Their main legal mistake was that they were providing unregulated financial advise.

Other than that, their business wasn't all that different from most of the others. Pretty much everyone in the financial market, big bank or small trading company, is bordering on outright fraud. Yes, I have bit of insider knowledge, from long before the crash. This has been going on for quite a while.

Re:what about those companies

[Anne Thwacks]

UK law used to say that "Limited Liability" only applies so long as the company obeys the law. If the law is broken, individual directors are completely responsible. There is a concept of corporate liability, but, as I understand it, that is intended to handle civil liability, not criminal liability.

However, that does not appear to be how actual courts find according to the newspapers. I don't know if the law has changed, or if the courts have difficulties with reality.

My local government department claimed they would plead "corporate insanity" if prosecuted for being reckless, but I have it on good legal advice that corporate pleas of insanity are not recognised in the UK.

Disclaimer: If you sue me, I will lead insanity too.p