[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Insider trading can pay;  getting caught for it is another story.  However, not the same story: just ask former analyst at SAC Capital Advisors Wesley Wang; former Galleon hedge fund portfolio manager Ali Far; and former Intel executive Roomy Khan who just received their sentences for their part in an insider trading scheme .

The Traders/Traitors. Wesley Wang, 39, fared the best.  The former analyst accused of tipping SAC CEO Steven Cohen immediately agreed to help the government's probe.  During his participation in the investigation, he secretly recorded telephone conversations, wore a wire in meetings with former friends and colleagues, and provided a list of 20 individuals.  To date, his information has helped produce 10 convictions, for which he received 2 years' probation – and no jail time.

Ali Far, 52, too, escaped jail time.  He spent 6 years between 2003 and 2009 trading on insider information before he was caught, a month after which he began cooperating with the government.  Two guilty pleas later, in addition to his own, he was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine, do 100 days of community service, and cooperate with prosecutors on other investigations during his 1-year probation.

Roomy Khan, 54, was the highest-ranked insider trader of these 2.  The Master's Degree recipient in Physics from Delhi University allegedly tipped convicted Galleon founder Raj Rajaratnam for 3 years before the feds discovered her.  Since then, she has pled guilty and assisted the government in Rajaratnam's prosecution.  Yet, she fared the worst: for her involvement, she was ordered to pay $1.5 million in forfeiture and serve 1 year in prison, followed by 3 years' supervised release.

Is the discrepancy fair?

For the record, all 3 are foreign-born. Yet, besides being the oldest, Khan is the only woman among the 3 traders;  only a handful of women have been charged in the U.S. government's crackdown on insider trading, making her remarkable in good and bad ways.  Further, while she was credited for her cooperation in the investigation of Rajaratnam – leading to a huge victory – it also produced the least amount of results.  To their credit, both Wang and Far helped the government much sooner than the 2 years Khan took.

[C-I Note: Our takeaway is not that if you get busted for insider trading, you should help the government as soon as possible; you shouldn't be participating in insider trading at all.  However, if you find yourself in an investigation regarding insider information, as far as assistance goes, more is more.]

For further details, go to [Dealbook, 1/9/13], [Business Standard, 2/1/13], and [Dealbook, 1/9/13].