Euphoria Lukas Kamay started his
Forex account with Pepperstone on August 13, 2013. He placed a small amount of money into the account
to get the ball rolling: just $1,000. About a month later, on September 12,
Kamay made his first trade. Hill sent him the information through their burner phones.
About 30 seconds before the labor statistics were released to the public, Kamay made the trade.
The trade yielded a $13,500 profit. Hill was pretty happy about the trade, even though
he'd been cautious going into the deal. He recalls giving Kamay more reports and feeling less and
less worried about the corrupt activity. There were no negative consequences so far, so why stop?
Before their successful trade on the 12th, Kamay opened a second account a day prior.
The account had $8,000 on it. A few months later, Kamay worked the account up to $47,000
after making some seriously big bets.
The next year, on January 16, Kamay turned the $47,000 into $370,000.
That was 4 successful trades in a row on risky bets,
meaning their Pepperstone accounts were starting to catch the attention of regulators.
Nevertheless, in February, Kamay made a bet at just the right time. Hill's
department released high unemployment numbers, causing Australian currency to take a big hit.
Kamay traded the currency for a good price and turned his $370k into $1.52million. A week later,
Kamay doubled his money and made $2.45 million after the ABS released more figures to the public.
Six days later, Kamay earned another $400,000, then, a day later, Kamay made another trade
after the ABS released negative construction figures, causing the Aussie currency to
hit a three-week low. Kamay made $536,000 on the deal, bringing his total close to $3 million.
On March 13, Kamay made his biggest one-day profit so far. The ABS released a report that
showed the economy was improving, causing their currency to shoot up in value. Kamay,
from the seat of his toilet, traded for $2.5 million that day.
His total by this point was $5.99 million. A month later, on April 15,
after a few more successful trades, Kamay's account had $7.76 million in it.
To summarize: in 9 months, Kamay conducted 21 trades and didn't
lose money on a single one of them. His profits added up to more than $7 million.
Kamay spent his profits on expensive suits, fancy watches, and a BMW Roadster. But none of those
items compared to the apartment he bought in the most bombastic way possible, on a reality tv show.
Christopher Hill & Lukas Kamay Christopher Hill and Lukas Kamay
met at Monash University, one of the most prestigious higher education establishments
in Australia. Apparently, they had a lot more in common than they thought.
Both Hill and Kamay grew up in Eastern Melbourne, a lush suburban area with good schools,
safe neighborhoods, manicured lawns, and beautiful parks.
Hill and Kamay shared a pretty similar life. They came from a good neighborhood, went to
a good school, and both had realistic dreams of becoming successful at whatever they chose.
Sky’s the Limit Hill and Kamay
were both brilliant, although Kamay was more ambitious than Hill. For example,
while attending Monash University, Kamay won the school medal for economics and commerce.
In later interviews, Hill says that Kamay was always obsessed with being successful. Fresh out
of college, Kamay earned a position at one of the largest banks in the world, Goldman Sachs.
For someone bent on becoming a corporate finance guy, as Kamay wanted to be, Goldman Sachs was
the most prestigious place to go, like a baseball player playing for the Yankees.
Hill didn't do too bad for himself either. He got a job at ABS, or the Australian
Bureau of Statistics, which isn’t as prestigious as Kamay's position at Goldman Sachs but still not
bad for a 22-year-old. Hill always wanted to live in the corporate finance world.
The two Monash alumni wouldn't meet again for two years,
at a class reunion at a pub on the Mornington peninsula.
Though the occasion was a happy one, the world was still reeling from the financial crash of 2008.
The crash caused several banking institutions to implode. And one
bank that really suffered was Goldman Sachs, the same company Kamay worked for.
Kamay couldn't have signed on at a more inconvenient time.
He attended the reunion as an ex Goldman Sachs employee. They fired him in 2010.
Nevertheless, Kamay rebounded into a position at NAB, another major banking establishment,
earning a $200k annual salary. It wasn't quite what the ambitious finance
job had in mind, but it was better than nothing.
Meanwhile, Hill kept his position at ABS. He'd even received a promotion to
a team that was running national labor statistics. Hill mentioned
his promotion to Kamay during the drunken festivities but got an unexpected response.
Kamay spun around and revealed to Hill that he could make money from those labor statistics.
Hill recalls not giving the comment much thought for the rest of the night.
After all, this was Kamay. Hill remembered how ambitious
and opportunistic his classmate was in school. Apparently, that hadn't changed.
So, he left the Mornington Peninsula without dwelling too much on what Kamay had said,
blissfully unaware that he'd completely altered
the course of his life by sharing his promotion with his old college buddy.
Labor Stats Kamay first called Hill in August of 2013.
He hadn't forgotten about Hill's position at the ABS and called about a potentially
lucrative trading strategy he couldn't stop thinking about since the reunion.
So far, Kamay's career hasn't gone as planned. Just three years prior,
he'd been fired from his dream job. Kamay still remembers when his bosses called him
to the board room and told him to pack his stuff up and leave as soon as possible.
In Kamay's eyes, Hill's job at ABS was his ticket back to the top,
a way for him to regain the prestige he held for less than a year.
Over the next few days, Kamay and Hill discussed the plan. According to records
obtained by investigators, they called each other twice more and sent each other 15 text messages.
Kamay suggested that Hill's labor statistics could indicate fluctuations in the Australian currency.
Put another way, the stats could help Kamay buy low and sell high in the Forex market.
Forex If you're going to properly understand
the magnitude of this story, you need to know what Forex is. Forex is the nickname for the
Foreign Exchange Market, a platform where traders can trade currencies at varying exchange rates.
The platform determines the exchange rates for one currency against another. For example,
if a trader thinks the British Pound is going to be worth more against the U.S dollar,
then the trader would take his US dollars and exchange it for the British Pound. As
the Pound becomes more valuable, the trader makes more money. It’s
a very simple process to understand, but extremely complicated to get it right.
The profit margins are incredibly slim. It's not unusual for a really good forex trader
to only win just over 50% of the time. Unless the trader has an edge, they're just gambling.
Labor statistics are a major facet of any national economy and can easily affect the
value of currency, or how much demand is staked on that particular currency.
Kamay knew this and wanted Hill to help provide him with the necessary information.
At last, they met at a pub in Melbourne and talked business.
He told Hill that all he would have to do was relay the information over to him on a 'burner'
phone—an extra phone they would use to contact each other— then Kamay would make the trade.
Kamay would trade until he hit the $200,000 mark in his trading account,
pay taxes on the 200k, then split the rest between them. That was the plan.
Hill didn't think the operation would go past that point. Going any further would be
like waving a flag to authorities and yelling, "hey, look at me, I'm doing something illegal."
The Block Kamay's spending,
and boldness, reached their peak when he starred on the Australian reality tv show The Block.
The show follows 5 couples who all compete to renovate and upgrade their homes to sell them
at auction to the highest bidder. The show is an opportunity for couples, designers,
and contractors to compete against each other to see who makes the most money.
The Block is also an opportunity for wealthy homebuyers to flaunt their wealth on TV.
Kamay was one of those wealthy homebuyers.
However, he didn't just appear on the show. He bought an apartment.
The apartment was worth a staggering $2.375 million, an amount that would
certainly draw attention to Kamay. Though, he didn't seem to care.
In truth, he was really enjoying the life he was living. It was the
life he'd dreamed of after graduating from Monash.
Little did he know that his $7 million in recklessly obtained Forex profits
were catching the attention of someone very important:
a high-level manager at Pepperstone, who wanted to find out how Kamay was an undefeated trader.
Plot twist! Kamay isn't the only scammer to buy property from the popular Australian reality show.
Check out this video to learn how Emese Fajk ripped off The Block and so many others!
The Sting Investigator
Kylie Standing received an unexpected new case on a Friday afternoon in 2014.
The case was odd because it was a sting operation into an alleged insider trading scheme. What
surprised Kylie most were the suspects. They were worth millions and only in their early 20s.
Joel Murphy, the head of operations at Pepperstone, noticed Kamay's remarkable trading
skills after his third trade. But after his 21st successful trade, Joel knew something was up.
He scrutinized Kamay's trades and discovered a distinct attribute;
they all coincided with the ABS public release information.
Joel dug through Kamay's Facebook friends until he came across Chris
Hill's profile. The Pepperstone manager googled Hill's name and found an article from the ABS.
Suddenly, the dots connected. Joel called the ABS and asked for Hill.
The receptionist forwarded the call to Hill's phone, and he answered. Joel asked Hill if he
worked for the market-sensitive news release team. Hill said he did, then Joel hung up,
his suspicions confirmed: Kamay was using Hill as an informant to inside trade on the Forex.
From there, forensic accountant Kylie took a covert job dubbed Operation Leith. The
goal was to catch Hill and Kamay in the act by recording them talking about the scheme.
Investigators bugged Kamay's phone, but not his burner phone,
and installed surveillance cameras in his house, his car, and office.
However, they found no incriminating evidence that Kamay was gathering trading information from Hill.
Kylie says that she and her team were getting frustrated.
To Kylie's team, Hill and Kamay were just suburban trust fund kids playing Wolf Of
Wall Street. They weren't real criminals. Nevertheless, the duo evaded Kylie and her
team until Kamay forgot to bring his burner phone on a flight to Melbourne.
He had to call Hill on his regular phone, the one that investigators bugged. Kylie and company heard
his entire conversation with Hill. Then, they heard Kamay say he was giving Hill $6,500 in cash.
Hill asked Kamay if it was okay to spend the money. Kamay said that it was fine.
Cops kicked in the door on Hill's place as soon as the money went through. Hill had
just gotten home at around 2 am after a night out. He was sleeping when the cops burst in.
Hill recalls thinking they were raiding his place for drugs and
that this was all a misunderstanding. Then they showed Hill a warrant with his
and Kamay's names on it. That's when Hill says he knew the game was over.
Sentencing Record Kamay was sentenced
to 7 years and 3 months in jail, a new record for someone convicted of insider trading. Hill,
on the other hand, was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months. The judge believed
Hill wasn't as instrumental as Kamay was in pushing the scheme forward. In fact,
Hill had no idea that Kamay had broken their $200,000 rule until after his arrest.
When police brought Hill to the station, they told him about how much money Kamay actually made.
He didn’t believe them when they said Kamay was raking in millions of dollars. For all his work,
Hill only walked away with a little over $20,000. Now, he was going to jail for it.
Also, they determined from the recorded conversation that Kamay was in charge,
and Hill was merely going along with him. Hill would still have to serve time,
which would follow him wherever he went for the rest of his life.
Fortunately, one of the investigators who caught Hill believed the formerly
corrupt government worker had some good in him.
Redemption Joel Murphy,
the man who initially tipped off the authorities, took Hill out to a pub after his release.
Joel was impressed with Hill's personality and intelligence and didn't think he was a bad guy.
So, Joel asked Hill if he wanted a fresh start working for him as a
risk analyst at Joel's brokerage firm. Joel believes that Hill's
experience in inside trading gives him an advantage when trying to catch scammers.
As of May 2022, Chris Hill is still helping catch criminals after being one himself for 9 months.
As for Kamay, he got out in 2019 and kept a low profile. He told this story to
Loyola College students, hoping that it would teach them to
always try and come back from setbacks like the one he experienced at Goldman Sachs.
Click to watch one of these next videos!
Let us know in the comment section what would you rather do: start your own
business with $100,000 dollars of capital or work for a company with a 100k salary?