Sergei Polevikov

Sergei Polevikov is a Belarus-born mathematician, quantitative analyst, and businessman known for co-founding the digital health company WellAI.^[1][2][3] He was convicted of securities fraud in 2021 for conducting an insider trading scheme while employed at OppenheimerFunds.^[4][2][3]

Polevikov was born in Belarus, where his father was a mathematician and theoretical physicist and his mother was an engineer.^[5][4] He immigrated to the United States from Belarus at age 22, citing political instability in his home country under the Lukashenko regime.^[6][4] Polevikov holds multiple advanced degrees, including four master's degrees in economics, finance, applied mathematics, and machine learning.^[5]

Polevikov joined OppenheimerFunds, an asset management firm headquartered in New York, in 2004.^[7] From 2014 through October 2019, Polevikov was employed as a quantitative analyst at OppenheimerFunds.^[4][7]

From 2014 through October 2019, Polevikov engaged in a front-running scheme in which he misappropriated confidential, material, nonpublic information about securities trade orders placed by OppenheimerFunds on behalf of its clients.^[4][7] He used this inside information to execute short-term personal securities trades in a brokerage account opened in his wife's name, Maryna Arystava.^[7][8] In total, the scheme generated more than $8.5 million in illicit profits.^[9][4]

The scheme was uncovered by the Securities and Exchange Commission's Market Abuse Unit's Analysis and Detection Center.^[8] Polevikov was arrested on September 22, 2021, and appeared in Manhattan federal court the following day, where he was released on $1.5 million bail.^[6][7] On September 23, 2021, he was charged with one count of securities fraud, one count of wire fraud, and one count of investment company fraud by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI.^[9][10] He pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud on December 15, 2021, before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman, agreeing to forfeit $8,564,977 in illicit proceeds.^[6][11][12]

In parallel with the criminal prosecution, the SEC filed a civil complaint on September 23, 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charging Polevikov with violating antifraud and reporting provisions of federal securities laws and seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest, penalties, and injunctive relief; the complaint also named his wife, Maryna Arystava, as a relief defendant.^[13][14][15] On July 29, 2022, a final judgment was entered against Polevikov, enjoining him from violating the law and holding him liable for disgorgement of his ill-gotten gains, which was deemed satisfied by the forfeiture order in the criminal case.^[16] Based on the judgment and his criminal conviction, the SEC barred Polevikov from the securities industry, and on the same day, with the SEC's consent, the court dismissed claims against Arystava.^[16][17]

Following his conviction, Polevikov became involved in healthcare technology and artificial intelligence. He co-founded WellAI, a digital health startup focused on bioinformatics and healthcare AI solutions, in 2019.^[1][2][3] He also became a member of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine's Working Group on Artificial Intelligence and Genomics Diagnostics (WG-AIGD).^[18]

Polevikov is married to Maryna Arystava and lives in Port Washington, New York.^[14][9]