Ex-Headlands Trader Indicted in $1B Source Code Theft

A former quantitative trader at Headlands Technologies has been indicted for allegedly walking out the door with source code worth over $1 billion, then using it to build his own trading startup. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Cheuk Fung Richard Ho, 36, was arrested on January 8, 2025, in Los Angeles. He faces one count of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets, brought by the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. The case was built by the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit with FBI involvement.

What he allegedly stole — and what he did with it: Headlands spent years developing proprietary components known internally as "Atoms" and "Alphas." Atoms