Whistleblower vindicated: Massive trading firm Kni
Post# of 96879
Finra staff reviewed four separate time periods from 2012 to 2015, spot-checking for errors. Most of the problems were found between June and July 2013, when Finra found 3,477 separate instances of KCG engaging in “a short sale for its own account without first borrowing the security,” a description of naked short selling, “while it had a fail-to-deliver position… that had not been closed out.” According to a footnote, these naked shorts were done “to facilitate a customer(s) long sale order on a riskless principal basis.”
This matches DiIorio’s explanations. “This is how KCG generates trading profits in penny stocks,” he said. “There is no such thing as riskless principal basis unless you’re doing something illegal.”
The customers facilitating KCG’s short sales by buying the stock long, DiIorio claimed, are typically high net-worth individuals operating through Swiss banks, using the trading activity as part of a scheme to launder money and evade taxes.