Ivan Boesky
The arbitrageur whose 1986 guilty plea and cooperation with the SEC built the case against Michael Milken.
Ivan Boesky is a real-world arbitrageur who pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 1986 as part of a larger insider trading investigation. As part of his plea he cooperated with the SEC and informed on others, implicating Michael Milken in illegal transactions including insider trading, stock manipulation, fraud and stock parking. This led to SEC and criminal probes of Drexel Burnham Lambert. While not a character in Billions, Boesky's real-life scandal provides historical context for the show's themes of insider trading and regulatory crackdowns.
Quick Facts
- Legal outcome
- Pleaded Guilty to Insider Trading
Facts from the source article.
Background
Ivan Boesky was an arbitrageur who pleaded guilty to securities fraud in 1986 as part of a larger insider trading investigation. As part of his plea, Boesky implicated Michael Milken in several illegal transactions, including insider trading, stock manipulation, fraud, and stock parking (buying stocks for the benefit of another). This led to an SEC probe of Drexel, as well as a separate criminal probe by Rudy Giuliani, then United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It only establishes his role in implicating Milken and triggering the investigations that ultimately led to Milken's indictment and conviction.
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