For 17 years, Matthew Kluger and Garrett Bauer assiduously avoided each other, communicating through a go-between—and over that time, made each other rich in one of the longest-running insider-trading schemes ever uncovered, federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday.
Once they were caught—after allegedly netting $32 million in profits—prosecutors say that Mr. Kluger, a lawyer, and Mr. Bauer, a trader, scrambled to wriggle out of the government net: Burning $175,000 in cash, disposing of a prepaid cell phone in McDonald’s trash cans, and destroying fingerprints by running money through a washing machine were all discussed.
“We have to get all the fingerprints off that money,” said Mr. Bauer in one of a flurry of frantic phone calls secretly taped by the go-between.
The complaint, filed in Newark by New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, accuses Mr. Kluger, who worked at two of the country’s top mergers-and-acquisitions law firms, of obtaining secret information from the firms and passing it to the go-between.
Full Story: Prosecutors Say Lawyer Stole Secrets, Made Millions