The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged a former J.P. Morgan analyst with insider trading for revealing confidential information regarding company mergers to a friend.

Trading ahead of public acquisition announcements brought in about $672,000 in profit, according to the SEC.

Aggarwal and Shahriyar Bolandian, 26, and Kevan Sadigh, 28, both of Los Angeles, surrendered to the FBI on Tuesday.

Ashish Aggarwal, a 27-year-old UC Berkeley graduate, worked as a Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) analyst at JPMorgan Securities in San Francisco from June 2011 until June 2013.

“Insider trading corrodes the integrity of the markets and undermines confidence among those who choose to trade”, U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said in a written statement released through her office.

Mr. Bolandian then used this information to trade using his account, as well as that of his father and sister.

Each is charged in Los Angeles with 30 counts including conspiracy, securities fraud, tender offer fraud and wire fraud.

An arraignment in California federal court was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.

In one instance, Aggarwal falsely claimed that his disclosure of inside information was “inadvertent”, according to the charges.

Lawyers representing the other two defendants were not immediately available for comment.

Bolandian could be sentenced to as much as 10 years in prison if he is convicted of the money laundering offense, Mrozek said.

To cover up that the stock purchases were based on inside information, the three men sent emails to each other “that contained false statements suggesting that their trades were based on research, or luck, not Inside Information”, the indictment said.

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