Yale Law M&A Attorney Sold 30 Deals' Worth of Inside Information Over 10 Years

Six BigLaw firms · 30 indicted · Amazon-iRobot among the leaks — "coffee" meant insider info, "rabbi" meant co-conspirator.

On May 6, 2026, simultaneous indictments from the US Department of Justice and the SEC stunned the Wall Street legal world. From 2014 through 2024, a global insider-trading network had pulled confidential information on 30 M&A deals and harvested tens of millions of dollars in illicit profit. Of the 30 people charged, 19 were arrested immediately; one Russian national and two suspects in Israel are on the run. The stage was Goodwin Procter, Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins, Weil Gotshal, Willkie Farr, and DLA Piper — six of the most senior US BigLaw firms.

A Yale Law graduate logged into firm systems while on leave

At the center of the case is Niccolo Nourafchan, 43, a Yale Law graduate who served successively at Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins, and Goodwin Procter as an M&A specialist. Per the indictment, he remotely accessed each firm's document management system (DMS) — not only while on staff, but also during formal leaves of absence — and pulled confidential filings on deals he was not assigned to. The information then flowed to a trader network through co-conspirator Robert Yadgaroff, a New York-licensed attorney.

In 2022 Goodwin Procter was advising iRobot on its $1.7B acquisition by Amazon. Per the indictment, Nourafchan passed the information to his co-conspirators roughly two months before the official August 5, 2022 announcement. Tipped traders bought iRobot shares in advance and reaped large gains when the stock jumped 19% on announcement day. Ironically, the deal was ultimately killed in January 2024 when the EU's antitrust regulator opposed it. The lawyers had already cashed in.

"Coffee" was inside information; "rabbi" was a co-conspirator — the playbook that survived a decade

The ring evaded detection for ten years through a deliberate operational security stack. Encrypted messengers were used; in-person meetings collected every attendee's phone. Burner phones carried the traffic and codewords were the norm — inside info was "coffee," key people were "rabbi." Profits were dispersed through paper companies in the British Virgin Islands and Panama and through a Russian-national intermediary into offshore accounts. After the fact, fake research notes were drafted to disguise trades as ordinary investments. Kickbacks flowed back to tipsters in cash, overseas wires, or so-called "business loans."

Beyond Amazon-iRobot, the indictment lists J&J-Actelion ($30B), Cigna-Express Scripts ($54B), Vista Equity's KnowBe4 take-private, C.R. Bard, Qualcomm, Care.com, SailPoint — 30 deals across 10 years.

Remote DMS access while on leave — the unflattering view of BigLaw security

What makes this case more shocking than the M&A deals themselves is the systemic gap. The defendants moved between several firms and operated for a decade, yet no firm caught them during hiring or while on staff. The fact that remote DMS access was possible while on leave shows just how loose access control was at these firms. Systems holding clients' entire M&A strategy were that wide open.

We are deeply disappointed that a former employee betrayed the trust placed in him and exploited confidential information.

Goodwin Procter, statement to the FT

The firms themselves are not defendants. But the pressure to audit access controls and overhaul internal security across BigLaw is now unmistakable.