STAMFORD, Conn.–the pressure on prominent hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors became more intense today when federal investigators announced that billionaire founder Steven Cohen had robbed a local liquor store.
“Surveillance footage shows Mr. Cohen robbing World Wine and Spirits on Mulshire Road at approximately 11:30pm,” said Preet Bharara, the US attorney for Manhattan. “He’s wearing a mask, but after cleaning out the cash register, he spends forty-five minutes looking for proprietary supply-chain data, so we’re pretty sure it’s him.”
Coming on the back of an indictment alleging that SAC Capital made more than $200 million from insider trading in pharmaceutical stocks, the new accusation was widely seen as a heavy blow. “For years, we’ve been wondering how Steve delivers such high returns to investors,” said financial journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. “Apparently by knocking over liquor stores and adding it to trading profits.”
A spokesman for Mr. Cohen called the robbery “a regulatory gray area” and noted that the insider-trading case was “an aberration, like the more than two hundred other insider-trading incidents where we didn’t get caught.” He then looked puzzled. “Maybe just leave that last line out,” he said.
In other news, some foreign-policy experts questioned whether Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi had actually strengthened the country’s democracy, as he claimed he had, by giving himself “all powers to do anything, forever and ever.”
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