Regulators in thew U.S. are freezing assets and trading accounts of a Russian who apparently has been involved in a "pump and dump" scam where this individual hacked the NASDAQ and the NYSE and was able to manipulate the prices of  some 38 issuers. The person, who is the sole proprietor of Broco Investments based in St.Petersburg Russia was able to capitalize by moving prices on these 38 traded securities which in turn allowed Broco to profit from up and down price swings. The S.E.C says that the trnsactions created the appearance of legitmate trading and artificially affected the prices on the 38 issuers. But this is not the first of it's kind.

An Indian man received a sentence of 2 years  for doing something similar in 2008. Also that year, Thomson Financial was hacked into by a Ukrainian who earned nearly $300,000  for work that took less time then a sitcom. Even at Goldman Sachs a man was arrested based on allegations of stealing proprietary source code for software that the employer used to make high speed trades. IN some latest cases, stocks have been affected as much as 20%.

“Immediately or shortly thereafter, the defendants capitalized on the artificially inflated share prices of the targeted securities by selling the shares previously acquired in their account,” the SEC alleged. “In other instances, the defendants profited by covering short positions previously established in their account while placing unauthorized sell orders through the compromised accounts at substantially lower prices.”the SEC said.“Broco grossed $141,500 in approximately 15 minutes.” 

Prosecution in this case is still pending further investigation.