Exec pleads guilty to trading Apple secretes

securities analyst before its release has pleaded guilty to insider trading, reports the Financial Times.

This makes him the latest expert networking consultant to admit wrongdoing in the US government's expansive probe.

Walter Shimoon, a former director of business development for Flextronics, an electronic components supplier to Apple and other technology companies, was arrested in December.

He was charged with insider trading along with two executives of other technology companies and James Fleishman, a former employee of Primary Global Research, a California firm that matches money managers with industry experts.

The San Diego, California man, who entered his plea before US District Judge Jed Rakoff, “also provided inside information to a consultant who operated a research firm and then provided the information to certain money managers,” a Justice Department statement said, says AFP.

As business development chief at Flextronics International, Shimoon secured confidential information about the firm, suppliers like OmniVision Technologies and Apple.

He then shared the secrets with employees and clients of the firm and to Primary Global Research, a consulting firm that paid him about $27 500 for his work.

According to the original charge sheet, Shimoon provided confidential information in October 2009 on two companies, including “sales forecasts information and new product features for Apple's forthcoming iPhone cellular phone.”

In a call, according to a transcript from prosecutors, Shimoon leaked word of an even more secret product in development, the iPad, which at the time was referred to as K4, writes Deal Book.

“So, you can get, at Apple you can get fired for saying K48...outside of a, you know, outside of a meeting that doesn't have K48 people in it,” he told a cooperating witness, according to taped calls,

“That's how crazy they are about it.”