Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka arrested for insider trading

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Originally published at: Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka arrested for insider trading | Boing Boing

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What is it about Sonic that makes him such a locus of internet behavior? Notably sex perversion, but also financial grifts, shitposting, online mobs, that kind of thing.

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Good for the Japanese authorities for catching him, but I have to wonder how? While it’s obvious that buying stock because a friend tells you a big announcement is coming is insider trading, that’s also incredibly difficult to detect and people do it all the time. I’m not a stock trader myself, but I certainly know many people who have bought stock based on tips like this from friends at other companies.

I imagine someone must have turned him in, or perhaps he was being set up for some reason.

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Apparently there were several people involved in this, so I am assuming that either that made the pattern more obvious or somebody talked.

Or it’s karma for Balan Wonderworld

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That suitcase full of rings is what tipped off the authorities…

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Word is this is just small-fry, pretextual stuff to keep him in detention for a while. The real investigation is into who is smuggling chaos emeralds into North Korea.

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Although he is most famous for his work with Sega, Yuji Naka was working at Square Enix at the time and so almost certainly was in a position to know about the Dragon Quest tie-up before it was announced to the public. A stock buy like that from any Square Enix employee at that specific timing would have been suspicious, so I do not believe that it was difficult for the police to put two and two together in this case.

Japanese companies do not do a very good job of educating employees on insider trading, so it is possible that Naka did not even know that he was doing something illegal (not that that will protect him).

ETA: Just rearranged paragraphs for better flow.

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Funny, did you know “naka” means “inside” in Japanese??!? LOL

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