One Best Friend Testifies Against The Other At Insider Trading Trial, Resulting In ‘Guilty’ Verdict

One of two friends involved in an insider trading scheme had his fate sealed by the other, when one friend turned and testified against the other. 

38 year old Brijesh Goel was convicted of securities fraud, conspiracy and obstruction for his part in a scheme that netted $280,000 from insider trades. His former literal partner in crime, 34 year old Akshay Niranjan, had recorded him and wore a wire, before testifying against him, to save his own hide.

Niranjan’s testimony helped a jury return a guilty verdict on Wednesday this week. Bloomberg, who reported on the verdict, called it a “sad little Wall Street melodrama”. 

The scheme saw Goel passing tips from his job at Goldman Sachs, originating from the firm’s confidential deal memos, to Niranjan.

Feds eventually got wise to the scheme and visited both men before Niranjan flipped on his former friend. The two met to discuss their plan of action in a stairwell of a building where they both lived, but Niranjan was recording the entire encounter. 

Goel’s lawyer called his former fried a “judas” and a “Benedict Arnold”, but the jury wasn’t swayed and returned a guilty verdict.  

Niranjan eventually testified that the two were “very close” and said at first, he thought Goel was just a great stock picker. It was after the fact that he realized he was being tipped with inside information. 

“He got a lot of the trades too correct,” Niranjan said on the stand during the trial. 

Goel eventually took the stand in his own defense, trying to claim to the jury that he had “panicked” in deleting texts between the two men and trying to cover up the conversations, which took place in English, Hindi and “personal code”, the report says. 

“I thought he had done something stupid. And I thought because of his stupidity, he’s going to be in trouble, and I’m going to be in trouble too,” Goel told the jury. “There was a lapse of judgement”.

And maybe not just in trading on insider information, but also in how Goel chooses his friends. He’s now facing a maximum of 20 years in prison.