A Chinese couple living in Indiana, USA, have pleaded guilty in Washington D.C. federal court on Tuesday, September 15, to charges of insider trading involving confidential information related to a corporate acquisition.
According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice and court records, Fan Yang, 35 (also known as Jocelyn Yang), and her husband Jing Tian, around 36 years old, have pleaded guilty to “conspiring to commit securities fraud.” As part of the plea agreement, the couple has agreed to forfeit all illegal proceeds traceable to the scheme under federal law.
Yang worked as a corporate development manager and strategic finance director at a manufacturing company based in Indiana. At the end of 2021, she obtained confidential information about an ongoing acquisition negotiation at the company. The company was planning a $3.7 billion acquisition of an automotive parts manufacturer in Michigan.
Prosecutors allege that Yang, in violation of her fiduciary duty, used this material non-public information (MNPI) for personal gain and shared it with her husband Tian, who also worked at the company. Despite knowing that the information was not yet public, the couple engaged in securities transactions and further disseminated the information to others, including two graduate students at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and a trader in China. The entire network profited hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally before the acquisition news was made public.
Prosecutors stated that Yang purchased 6,700 shares of the target company’s stock between October 27 and December 14, 2021. Following the public announcement of the acquisition on February 22, 2022, the target company’s stock price surged by approximately 44% before the market opening.
The Department of Justice highlighted a message sent by Yang to her husband via WeChat on November 22, 2021, as crucial evidence. The message read: “We’ve already invested over 100,000. If the acquisition is completed at 3.5 billion, we can buy a Tesla without needing a loan, haha.”
The investigation into this case was conducted by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, with prosecution led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The two defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on January 15, 2027, and could face a maximum of 5 years in prison.