Ken Griffin, Chicago’s biggest criminal complains about the city’s crime. “Like Afghanistan,” he says.
In 2017 Citadel Securities and its owner Ken Griffin reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The price tag for the agreement was $22.6 million.
The SEC said Citadel and Griffin cheated its customers.
The SEC found that Griffin used two algorithms to execute stock trades on customers’ behalf that gave a worse price for their trades even when Citadel knew better prices existed elsewhere. The SEC penalized Citadel for failing to disclose the use of those algorithms to clients.
“This affected millions of retail orders,” said Stephanie Avakian, the acting director of enforcement at the SEC.
Ironically, given my recent posts on private equity and teacher pensions, if teacher pension funds had been the victims of Ken Griffin’s theft he might have gotten away with it since public pension investors are not afforded the same protection as private investors.
People like Griffin are rich by investing and taking risks. Not risking their own money. They risk other people’s money and billions of it comes from teacher pension funds.
Griffin told interviewers yesterday that he was thinking about moving Citadel out of Chicago. He complained about the crime and compared us to Afghanistan.
During the Chicago protests of the killing of George Floyd Griffin wanted armed national guard on duty on Michigan Avenue.
In his most recent interview he called again for the national guard to be called out.
Last year Griffin spent millions of his ill-gotten dollars to defeat a change to the Illinois constitution that would allow us to tax those like Griffin at a higher income tax rate than a janitor or a teacher. Illinois has a flat income tax system. Griffin’s millions helped defeat the change.
Griffin’s money also helped elect Donald Trump.
Griffin's personal real estate includes homes in Chicago, New York, Palm Beach, Miami, Hawaii, Colorado and London.
Griffin has liabilities of about $2 billion including mortgages, according to discussions with a person familiar with his financial situation who did not wish to be identified because the information is private.
And Griffin declined to comment on his net worth in March 2021.
Criminals rarely do.