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By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) - A former trader at U.S. hedgefund Moore Capital was sentenced to 19 months in jail by aLondon court on Thursday after becoming the third man to pleadguilty in Britain's largest insider dealing investigation.
Julian Rifat, dubbed "the face of Moore Capital" byinvestigators, is one of the most high-profile professionalscharged in connection with an eight-year inquiry codenamedOperation Tabernula -- the latin word for tavern.
The investigation, named after London bars such as The Rackand Tenter, The Crispin and The Gable in which the spoils ofillegal trading were divided, is part of a crackdown on a crimethat UK regulators only began prosecuting in 2009.
Rifat, who was arrested on his 41st birthday five years agoand pleaded guilty last November, passed on confidential, marketmoving tips gathered from the Moore Capital's London offices toformer broker Graham Shelley via text messages on unregisteredpay-as-you-go mobile phones.
Shelley, who worked for Novum Securities, traded for theirjoint benefit in a scam that generated more than 250,000 pounds($368,250), bought Rifat a 15,000 pound luxury family holidayand organised a 48,500 pound payment for a Range Rover.
Insider dealing investigations are notoriously lengthy andtough to prove. But some evidence jumped out.
In an email to travel agents Trailfinders, Rifat wrote: "Youwill be getting a phone call from a person called Graham Shelleywho will be paying for our holiday in full to Oman..."
The FCA said Rifat passed on confidential information abouteight companies in 2009, including UK bank Barclays,German carmaker Volkswagen, Spanish power groupIberdrola and German retailer Metro.
Rifat, who was given credit by the judge for his guiltyplea, was also fined 100,000 pounds and ordered to pay costs ofalmost 160,000 pounds.
JAILED
Shelley pleaded guilty last year to insider dealing withRifat and Paul Milsom, a former trader at the investment arm ofinsurer Legal & General.
Shelley received a two-year suspended sentence, partlybecause of his previous good character and poor health. As aninsider, Milsom was sentenced to two years in jail and fined240,000 pounds in 2013 after also pleading guilty.
The sentence for Rifat, a former senior execution trader, is a boon for the FCA, which has won 27 criminal convictions forinsider dealing with sentences of up to four years since 2009.
This is dwarfed by a U.S. crackdown on Wall Street, althoughlawyers expect that a U.S. court decision last year to overturntwo convictions and narrow the crime's definition will slow arun of cases that featured traders at some of the country'sleading hedge funds and alarmed trading rooms.
FCA case manager Ken O'Donnell and forensic investigatorRichard Littlechild led a team of up to 30 to hunt down suspectsafter being alerted to suspicious trading patters in 2007.
In March 2010, regulatory investigators and a squad of 143police officers made the first arrests and seized documents andcomputers. It took months to compile a detailed chronology,cross-checking phone records, text messages, emails,hand-written notes and other documents.
"There are no short cuts," O'Donnell told a news briefing."Mistakes mean collapsed trials."
Six others, including a former Deutsche Bank managing director, are charged over a separate allegedconspiracy under Operation Tabernula and face trial in Jan 2016.
Insider dealing is a criminal offence in Britain and can bepunishable by a fine and a jail sentence of up to seven years.
($1 = 0.6585 pounds)
(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley, editing by Sinead Cruise andElaine Hardcastle)
