Foreign-linked high frequency traders indicted for futures manipulation

Yishidun, a company with foreign links involved in high frequency trading (HFT), its two executives and a technical supervisor have been indicted for manipulating the futures market in Shanghai, prosecutors said Thursday.

The First Branch of Shanghai People's Procuratorate said it had filed the charge against Yishidun, an international trade company founded in 2012 in east China's Jiangsu Province; its two executives Gao Yan and Liang Zezhong; and Jin Wenxian, the technical supervisor of China Fortune Futures, to Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court.

Yishidun and the trio are alleged to have pocketed a huge amount of money after manipulating trades, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement in November last year.

Two Hong Kong-based companies respectively set up by Georgy Zarya and Anton Murashov, both foreign nationals, are named investors in Yishidun, with a registered capital of 500,000 U.S. dollars, according to the ministry.

Yishidun used HFT to buy and sell in huge quantities in prices far deviated from market standards and illegally pocketed more than two billion yuan (301 million U.S. dollars), said the statement.

Authorities locked onto Yishidun in July 2015 when looking into fluctuations in the country's securities and futures markets that led to huge losses for many investors, said the statement.

Gao and Liang worked for Yishidun and Jin provided assistance to Yishidun, according to the November statement. Endi