The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges on May 6, 2026, against 21 individuals alleged to have participated in a coordinated insider trading scheme that spanned roughly a decade and generated millions of dollars in illicit profits [1]. The Department of Justice filed parallel criminal charges against all 21 defendants in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts [1][2]. The alleged ringleaders are Nicolo Nourafchan, a mergers-and-acquisitions attorney based in Los Angeles, and Robert Yadgarov of Long Beach, New York [1].
According to the SEC complaint, Nourafchan misappropriated material, nonpublic information from multiple global law firms where he worked or had access to client data, then passed that information to Yadgarov and a broader network of traders [1]. The scheme allegedly covered more than 12 pending corporate transactions between 2018 and 2024 [1]. The misappropriation theory is a recognized theory of insider trading liability under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and SEC Rule 10b-5, holding that a person who uses confidential information belonging to a source to which they owe a duty of trust commits fraud against that source [1]. The SEC's Market Abuse Unit, led by Joseph G. Sansone, coordinated the investigation alongside the FBI and FINRA [1][2].
The parallel structure of the enforcement action, civil charges from the SEC and criminal charges from the DOJ filed simultaneously, reflects the standard playbook for large insider trading takedowns. The criminal case in the District of Massachusetts means defendants face potential incarceration and criminal forfeiture in addition to the civil disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties the SEC is seeking [1][2]. Lawyers for the named defendants had not issued public statements as of the date of the filings [2].
With 21 defendants spread across a tipper-trader network tied to multiple law firms, the case presents significant coordination challenges at the pretrial stage. Defense counsel will likely contest the sufficiency of the alleged duty of trust running from each law firm to Nourafchan and, by extension, to downstream traders. The sheer breadth of the alleged network, more than a dozen transactions and years of trading activity, also raises the possibility that some defendants may seek cooperation agreements with prosecutors before the cases proceed to trial [2].