Mark Lyttleton, a former equity portfolio manager at BlackRock Investment Management, has today been sentenced to 12 months in prison for two counts of insider dealing, in a prosecution brought by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The 45-year old pleaded guilty to the two incidences, having made £35,000 ($43,000) trading in two energy companies.

According to Bloomberg, Lyttleton was arrested alongside his wide Delphine in 2013 as part of an investigation, known as Operation Rye, by the FCA. His wife was dropped from the probe in 2015.

“Insider dealing is not a victimless crime,” said the trial judge HHJ Goymer, when sentencing Lyttleton. “I regard these offences are pre-mediated and blatantly dishonest.”

In 2012 the FCA begun an investigation into suspicious trading by Lyttleton. He was suspected of placing trades in stocks on the basis of inside information gleaned by him over the course of his employment at BlackRock.

Lyttleton was convicted for trading shares of EnCore Oil in October 1011 and, a month later, Cairn Energy, using information gained from his role at Blackrock, Bloomberg reports.

Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, FCA said:

“Lyttleton’s insider dealing involved a gross abuse of the trust placed in him as a senior fund manager. He tried to hide his misconduct through the use of unregistered mobile phones and setting up a company in his wife’s maiden name in an overseas jurisdiction. None of this meant he could avoid detection.

“Those who are tempted to insider deal, especially financial industry professionals, must know now they are more likely to be caught than ever before and, when caught, they will likely face a custodial sentence.”