Feb 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and ExchangeCommission has charged nine new defendants over what it hascalled a more than $100 million international scheme to hackinto newswires that distribute corporate press releases and touse stolen information to conduct insider trading.
According to a complaint filed on Wednesday in U.S. DistrictCourt in Newark, New Jersey, five traders and four companiesthey own made more than $19.5 million of illegal profit bytrading in such companies as heart valve maker EdwardsLifeSciences Corp and casino operator Las Vegas SandsCorp.
The SEC said the trades were based on inside informationprovided by Oleksandr Ieremenko and Ivan Turchynov, two hackersfrom Ukraine, who stole more than 100,000 news releases forpublicly traded companies before they were issued to the public.
These thefts included information about quarterly results,and occurred from 2010 to 2014, the SEC said.
Nine defendants, including Ieremenko and Turchynov, havebeen charged criminally in Newark or in New York's Brooklynborough by the U.S. Department of Justice over the allegedhackings. Two of the other defendants have entered guilty pleas.
At least 42 defendants, including traders in several othercountries, now face SEC civil charges over the alleged scheme,court papers show.
Contact information for lawyers for the nine new defendantswas not immediately available. The individual defendants areNatalia Andreevna Alepko, Andrey Bokarev, Anton Maslov, RadionPanko and Evegenii Zavodchiko. Their companies are located inBelize, Dominica, Panama and the Seychelles, the SEC said.
Authorities have said the hacked newswires include BusinessWire, a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc ; PR Newswire, a unit of UBM Plc being sold toChicago-based Cision; and Marketwired, which is being sold toNasdaq Inc. None was accused of wrongdoing.
The case is SEC v. Zavodchiko et al, U.S. District Court,District of New Jersey, No. 16-00845. The other SEC case is SECv Dubovoy et al in the same court, No. 15-06076. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by JonathanOatis)
