Michael Coscia, the first person convicted as a “spoofer” under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, has been sentenced to 3 years in prison. Coscia is not a young hacker kid or even a computer whiz, he is a fifty-four-year-old commodities trader and owner of New Jersey-based Panther Energy Trading.

Coscia was convicted in November 2015 for artificially bumping up commodities prices by using computer algorithms to quickly place large orders through commodity markets in Chicago and London which he then cancelled within milliseconds.  These placed-then-cancelled trades were alleged to have had effects on the pricing of the commodities that benefitted Coscia to the tune of more than $100,000 per month in 2011.
Continue Reading Federal Court Sentences First Convicted Spoofer Under Dodd-Frank to 3 Years