Galleon Insider Trading: Those Blue-eyed Blondes, again
11/23/2009
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Bloomberg has produced an extraordinary story on the Galleon insider trading case: Woman Who Sank Galleon Was Beauty-Queen-Turned-Analyst Insider by Anthony Effinger, Katherine Burton and Ian King November 23, 2009

This breathlessly reports on the role of Danielle Chiesi, one of the six arrested on October 16th at the start of this case.

Danielle Chiesi spent a lot of time in hotel ballrooms and bars during the past decade… she was a regular at conferences on technology stocks, where she could get face time with executives and press them on how many microprocessors and how much software they were shipping that quarter.

Chiesi wore short skirts and low-cut tops, according to people who saw her over the years. One ploy was to go barhopping with a group, and then peel someone off to talk to on the dance floor

A blond, blue-eyed former teenage beauty queen, Chiesi used her sexuality to build sources at male-dominated tech companies...

Many were under the impression that Galleon’s chief Raj Rajaratnam, had most to do sinking Galleon. Another candidate would be the only other woman in the case, whose approach to the authorities in 2007 triggered the investigation: Roomy Kahn.

Roomy Kahn is not a blue eyed blonde.

The significant thing about Galleon case is that unlike the great insider trading prosecutions of the 1980s (which were overwhelmingly Jewish) this one appears to be predominantly South Asian. Of the 21 people named in Galleon Scandal Scorecard: Hedge Funds, Lawyers and ”Octopussy’ by Bob Van Voris Bloomberg Nov 7 2009, eight have South Asian names, one each Chinese and Hispanic (the latter not indicted) five appear Jewish and six may be of Christian heritage.

(”Octopussy” — alleged mastermind Zvi Goffer — and his brother Emanuel bear a name most often found in Israel.)

I predict that this pattern will be seen frequently in the future. To an extent not widely realized, Wall Street is now Minority Occupied Territory.

So why does Bloomberg deploy three reporters (shades of Palin! ) and 3,146 words, with extensive details as to heritage

Her grandfather, Swiss-born Alex Chiesi, studied with French chef Auguste Escoffier, who invented the Peach Melba dessert while running the restaurant at the Savoy Hotel in London in 1893. Alex moved to the U.S., where he owned several restaurants

and concluding

the men who sell silicon chips and software will miss the exuberant blonde who lit up the dance floor at those industry events ?

(Third mention of hair color)

There is hardly an older story than a woman using her femininity for business purposes, and it is quite unrepresentative of how the Galleon/Goffer ring actually worked.

Is Bloomberg in the Disinformation business?

Ask Reporters Antony Effinger, Katherine Burton and Ian King when they will deal with the important aspects of this scandal.

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