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A former Janus Henderson analyst has been found guilty of insider trading and money laundering, making profits of nearly £1mn, in one of the most high-profile UK insider dealing cases in recent years.
Redinel Korfuzi, 38, was convicted alongside his sister, Oerta Korfuzi, 36, of both offences by a jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Thursday after a four-month trial.
Personal trainer Rogerio de Aquino and his girlfriend Dema Almeziad were acquitted of the same charges.
The jury was told Korfuzi used information he had as an insider in his former role at Janus Henderson to allow his co-conspirators to trade and make a profit in stocks, including Daimler and Jet2, while using remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic as cover.
The siblings traded in the companies often within 24 hours of Korfuzi obtaining inside information from his job, the jury was told. A flat in London’s Marylebone where Korfuzi lived with his sister and partner was the “heart of the enterprise”, the prosecution said.
The defendants were charged with one count of insider dealing between December 2019 and March 2021 and one count of money laundering between January 2019 and March 2021. The Financial Conduct Authority, announced the charges in the investigation, known as Operation Naples, in January 2023.
Korfuzi and his sister looked straight ahead as the verdicts were read out. The judge gave the jury a majority direction earlier on Thursday, which meant at least nine of the jurors had to agree on each verdict. Only 10 jurors were sitting on the case after two were released due to illness.
The panel was unanimous on the insider dealing charges against the pair and reached a majority verdict on the money laundering counts.
The maximum penalty for insider dealing at the time the offences took place was seven years imprisonment, and 14 years for money laundering. The Korfuzi siblings will be sentenced on July 4.
“These are serious matters of which you’ve been convicted and the sentences will reflect that,” His Honour Judge Milne told the pair on Thursday.
A barrister for Redinel Korfuzi declined to comment after the verdict. Solicitors for the pair did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The defendants were motivated by “greed, plain and simple”, prosecutor Tom Forster KC, acting for the FCA, said in his closing speech this month. This “was plainly a secret trading club” that was “rigged” by the use of inside information, he told jurors.
De Aquino, 63, and Almeziad, 40, did not testify in the case. De Aquino told the FCA in an interview that he had been “hoodwinked” by Redinel Korfuzi, while Almeziad said she had been “duped”.
Almeziad’s lawyer Roger Sahota said after the verdict: “This case should never have been brought. There was no evidence that Ms Almeziad knew anything about insider dealing, and it is wrong to expect ordinary people to understand or spot complex financial conduct that even professionals struggle with.”
Redinel Korfuzi said in his testimony that cash transferred into bank accounts and safety deposit boxes was “absolutely not” linked to insider dealing, but money collected from UK clients of his father’s Albanian construction company.
Janus Henderson said in a statement that it had fully co-operated with the FCA investigation. “The protection of confidential information is extremely important to Janus Henderson, and the firm treats any actual or suspected misuse of confidential information with the utmost seriousness.”
