Friday morning in Australia, investment banker Oliver Curtis was released from prison after spending a year behind bars for his part in an insider-trading scheme that involved a friend who worked for Orion Asset Management, John Hartman. A video shows the 31-year-old being whisked away on a private jet after being released from Cooma Correctional Centre, together with his 5- and 3-three-old children, Pixie and Hunter. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Curtis and his wife Roxy Jacenko kept the information about their father's time in prison from the children, instead of telling them that their dad was attending to business in China for the past year.

The Herald has reported on how, over ten years ago, over a more-than-year-long period, John Hartman and Oliver Curtis forged an illicit partnership, one where Hartman would funnel inside knowledge about imminent market-moving transactions, Curtis would front-run the trades, and the two would split the profits. The pair profited from the rise and fall of individuals stocks and contracts for difference (CFD), both buying and shorting the securities.

'Life of conspicuous excess'

"Their deception will snare the pair nearly $1.5 million, funding a life of conspicuous excess," The Herald stated describing the life lead by Curtis and Hartman over the year they operated. It included a $3,000-weekly Bondi Beach apartment, expensive cars and motorcycles, and more than one "extravagant holiday," including "skiing in Canada and gambling in Vegas."

Some of the companies whose shares the duo was said to have operated in included WorleyParsons Limited (ASX: WOR), Bank of Queensland Limited (ASX: BOQ), and Computershare Limited (ASX: CPU).

According to analyst consensus estimates published by Yahoo Finance, each company is expected to be profitable in 2017 and 2018.

In the end, police and prosecutors turned the two against each other, with Hartman described as the "star witness" in the case against Curtis, for which he has now served his time, and is once again a free man.

In addition to her marriage to Curtis, Roxy Jacenko is well known for her appearance on the third season of The Celebrity Apprentice Australia.

Questions swirl surrounding photographs

The investment banker was said to appear "surprised" with the number of reporters who had gathered to cover his release and reunion with his wife and children and to have made no comment after initially being expected to ask the media for privacy.

Reporters on the scene were said to have questioned Curtis about his feelings about photographs of his wife kissing her former boyfriend Nabil Gazal, in April, while he was still in prison, as featured in the Daily Mail.

John Hartman is reported to have served 15 months in jail for his part in the insider trading affair, after negotiating a deal with prosecutors."White-collar criminals, blue-collar criminals, deserve equal treatment under the law," Greg Medcraft, the chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, was quoted at the time of Curtis' sentencing, in June 2016.
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