Goldman Sachs analyst, 35, who used £90,000 Tesco home improvements loan to gamble on stocks and shares with inside information is jailed for 22 months

• Mohammed Zina, 35, made a profit of around £142,000 with his insider trading

A Goldman Sachs analyst who made around £142,000 by using a £90,000 Tesco home improvements loan to fund his insider trading has been jailed for a year and eight months.

Mohammed Zina, 35, was employed as an analyst in the Conflict Resolution Group of Goldman Sachs at their London office at the time of the insider trading offences.

Zina took a loan of over £90,000 from Tesco Bank, claiming that the money would be used for home improvements, but instead used it to gamble on stocks and shares with insider information.

The offences took place between July 2016 and December 2017 and involved trading in Arm Holdings, Alternative Networks, Punch Taverns, Shawbrook, HSN and Snyder’s-Lance.

Zina, of Stoke Newington, east London, denied the charges but was convicted by a jury of six counts of insider trading and three counts of fraud.

He held his head in his hands as the jury gave its verdicts after 20 hours and 38 minutes at the end of a 10 week trial at Southwark Crown Court.

Judge Michael Baumgartner sentenced Zina to 22 months in prison this morning and said: ‘You betrayed the trust of your employer as well as cheated honest investors in the shares you traded using insider information used for at work.

‘What you did strikes at the very heart of financial markets and the trust and confidence the public places in them.’

He must serve at least half of his sentence in prison before he can be released and serve the remainder on licence.

Peter Carter KC, prosecuting, earlier said Zina ‘used information that should not have been used, as it was private, confidential, price sensitive information to effectively gamble, invest on the stock exchange, That is not allowed.

‘As far as Mohammed Zina is concerned, did he buy and sell shares through brokers because at the time he had information because of his employment at Goldman Sachs not available to anyone else? If he did then he is guilty.’

Zina, of Stoke Newington, north London, denied but was convicted of six counts of insider trading and three counts of fraud.

Earlier the judge had directed the jury to acquit Zina’s brother, 36-year-old Suhail Zina, a solicitor at Clifford Chance, on each of the charges after finding that there was no case to answer.

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