By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former Wall Street quantitative analyst was charged on Thursday with insider trading for making nearly 2,900 trades after learning his employer would soon make the same trades for clients, known as front-running.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Sergei Polevikov (48), of Port Washington, New York was charged with insider trading for more than $8.5million in illegal profits from trades that he made through his wife’s brokerage account.

Polevikov was detained on Wednesday evening. A public record search revealed that Polevikov had worked at OppenheimerFunds while the front-running was taking place.

Prosecutors claim that Polevikov was able to profit from small stock price moves he anticipated would occur once large orders were filled by his employer.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil complaint stating that 2,858 of Polevikov’s 2,874 overlap trades went in the exact same direction as his employer.

Polevikov was accused of securities fraud and wirefraud. Each offense carries a 20 year sentence and fraud in an investment firm.

U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss of Manhattan stated in a statement that Polevikov violated not only the terms and conditions of his employment, but also the law by exploiting material, unpublic information to make trades personal before making large institutional trades.

His LinkedIn profile shows that Polevikov resigned OppenheimerFunds on October 2019 after the company was purchased by Invesco Ltd. from MassMutual.

WellAI, which he founded last year in Wyoming, is his current chief executive.

Invesco, WellAI and Invesco didn’t immediately reply to inquiries for comment.