John Hartman and Oliver Curtis. Credit:Nic Walker and Daniel Munoz. "Just grab everything you can," snaps Curtis. "Be aggressive?" asks the harried broker. Two minutes later, another call. "Just grab everything you can. If anything comes up, just grab it."

The 2003 yearbook of Saint Ignatius College, Riverview, one of Sydney's most prestigious Catholic schools. The 22-year-old Curtis ought to be focusing on his job as a junior financier with Transocean Securities, a boutique investment banking firm in the heart of Sydney's CBD. But here he is, a hard-charging trader, spending half this afternoon in October 2007 fussing with his BlackBerry and putting in calls to his personal stockbroker. Not that playing by the rules is Curtis's style: tall and good-looking, clad in his signature pinstriped suit and tie with his light brown quiff slicked back, Curtis cuts quite a figure in the fifth-floor offices of Transocean. That he's the son of Nick Curtis, the founder of mining explorer Lynas Corp, named in a BRW cover story titled Filthy Rich, doesn't hurt. The 2003 yearbook of Saint Ignatius College, Riverview, one of Sydney's most prestigious Catholic schools. But there is another factor boosting Curtis's swagger: he's receiving hot tips from his old school mate John Hartman, an equities dealer plugging him into some of the best market moves before they happen. Hartman and Curtis, who were inseparable mates at the elite St Ignatius' College, Riverview on Sydney's lower north shore, have cut a gentleman's agreement: Hartman supplies the tips, Curtis makes the deal, with a 50-50 split of the spoils, which usually manifests as a luxury boy's toy (Ducati, anyone?) for the informer rather than a crude cash transfer into his bank account.

A few blocks away in the offices of Orion Asset Management on the 23rd floor of Gold Fields House overlooking Circular Quay, John Hartman has been in a meeting with the firm's fund managers, learning of that day's planned trades. Orion manages billions of dollars for its clients and is preparing to dump a large stake in construction company Leighton Holdings. Hartman is responsible for instructing the firm's brokers. But before he makes the trade for his employer, Hartman punches a message into his BlackBerry, alerting his mate "Oli" to the move. In early 2016, chief executive Lloyd Blankfein embarked on the firm's biggest cost-cutting push in years. Credit:Science Photo Library Keith Hartman is woken at 5.30am by the kind of call all parents fear. “I’ve done something dreadful,” John tells his father. No matter that Hartman knows what he's doing is illegal. He has signed Orion's personal trading policy confirming he knows he is not allowed to trade in stocks being traded by his employer and that he understands what actions constitutes insider trading. And no matter that the 21-year-old is not short of a buck, with a salary heading towards $150,000 and the carrot of an end-of-year $200,000 bonus. For Hartman, the son of Dr Keith Hartman, the obstetrician who welcomed the latest generation of Packers and Murdochs to the world, it's a case of damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead. He knows it's unlikely he'll be dobbed in – Orion is a small company; he had training when he first started 18 months ago but is now working independently. The two young princelings are desperate to seize a cargo of Leighton stock, not because it's about to go through the roof, but because it's about to go through the floor. The pair aren't making money from the sale or purchase of physical shares or currencies, but from predicting fast-moving price movements through a form of derivatives trading known as "contracts for difference", or CFDs.

John Hartman gave evidence against Curtis during the Supreme Court trial. Credit:AAP When you buy a CFD, you're buying a contract in a bet that a share price will move up (a long position) or move down (a short position). With the Leighton stock, Curtis and Hartman are taking a short position, borrowing from a broker in the hope the share price will fall, then buying it back at a cheaper rate and pocketing the difference. CFDs can mean big wins and big losses in quick time – but the risk is radically reduced if you possess inside information on future buying and selling movements, especially if the firm making them is big enough, like Orion, to affect the market. Oliver Curtis arrives with his wife Roxy Jacenko during his Supreme Court trial in May. Credit:AAP By the next morning, the Orion sell-off is hitting Leighton's share price. At 11.05am, Curtis and Hartman close the deal. They pocket a cool $75,713.

Within half an hour, they are back into the market, this time taking a short position on uranium producer ERA, thanks to another tip from Hartman. John Hartman’s handwritten apology to his Orion bosses after being caught. Later that day Hartman emails his accomplice a news story about ERA's share price moves. "ERA down 1.6% at $19.56 but bounced swiftly from $18.70 low this afternoon after large buying went through at that level." Hartman can't resist: "U made the news." The trade earns them more than $82,000.

"A couple of good days on the equities," broker Andrew Knight enthuses to Curtis, marvelling at his success. Fifteen minutes later, in the afterglow of their winnings, Hartman emails Curtis a picture of a black Ducati Sport 1000. "Nice, mate," replies Curtis. "Birthday present?" "I worked for it but birthday present is a good excuse," responds Hartman. For more than a year, Oliver Curtis and John Hartman will hoodwink the market, deftly manoeuvring their way to extraordinary riches. Their deception will snare the pair nearly $1.5 million, funding a life of conspicuous excess. They will pad about their $3000-a-week apartment – the year's rent paid up front – overlooking Bondi beach, snap up cars and motorbikes, and open their wallets to fly six mates for an extravagant holiday, skiing in Canada and gambling in Vegas. But within a few short years, it will end in tears, family despair, reputational ruin, jail. They will be making headlines across Australia, sitting across from one another in a courtroom in the historic St James Supreme Court, tossing verbal hand grenades at each other via their high-priced legal teams. Hartman will be the star witness against his former bestie. Curtis will fight tooth and nail, via every legal means possible, to halt his trial. Hartman will say they both have a gambling problem, and also label Curtis a "show-off". Curtis's wife, high-profile public relations entrepreneur Roxy Jacenko, will top it all off by turning the whole ordeal into a media circus, slinging photos of herself in designer shoes and frocks en route to court onto Instagram.

But this is a lot more than a simple morality tale about unbridled greed or when the line is crossed between testosterone-driven risk-taking and a cold, calculated act of fraud. It's a tale of privilege, entitlement and what happens when boom-time euphoria overwhelms all common sense. It raises uncomfortable questions about how the big end of town rolls, how our financial markets operate and what people who play them consider normal behaviour. The two young men imagined they could avoid detection by using BlackBerrys to communicate, taking advantage of the device's encryption technology. But the pair wound up leaving an extraordinary trail of digital fingerprints, which would be later used in court against them. It's from this digital trail – of emails, bank transactions, trading records, recorded phone conversations with brokers and yes, evidence of text messages on their BlackBerrys – that Good Weekend has pieced together this story. And like all stories, the key to understanding what made these young men tick is to go back to where it all started. "Y​ou're rolling in it". The headline emblazoned across the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald on March 27, 2006, says it all. For three years now, the world's major stock exchanges have been running red-hot and Australia's sharemarket is hitting new heights, fuelled by a booming Chinese economy and rivers of credit. It's a time of mega bonuses, of banks nicknamed "millionaire's factories", soaring property prices, and of regulatory market authorities like the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) playing a cat-and-mouse game with brokers as new technology and products hit the market. The global financial crisis is still more than a year away; to those reaping the profits, it seems like the boom will go on forever. The sharemarket will hit yet another record high that day in March on the back of three, multimillion-dollar corporate mergers. On this same sparkling morning, a fresh-faced, ambitious young man strides into Gold Fields House for his first day at work. Only two years into an economics degree at the University of Sydney, John Hartman has been hired as a securities dealer at Orion. It's a small office of only five or six employees, and Hartman's tasks are basically clerical: to instruct brokers on what shares Orion's fund managers want to buy or sell, for which he will receive training and, soon, a six-figure salary.

Hartman now has another thing to share with his best friend from Riverview, Oliver Curtis, who has dropped out of university and is already working as an analyst at Transocean Securities. The pair bonded at school over sport and cars: Hartman excelled at rugby and cricket and won a surf life saving national beach sprint when he was 17, while Curtis took pride in driving "the best car in the year to drive to school", according to his final yearbook. Tellingly, Hartman was described as having "an unusual relationship with his teachers as he often assumes total power and at times the teachers ended up in more trouble than John". Their families lived in harbourside Mosman on Sydney's well-to-do lower north shore and got to know each other through their sons. Nick Curtis, the mining entrepreneur whose company Lynas Corp took a $5 million gamble in 2002 developing an Australian rare earth mine, which paid off spectacularly (by 2011, the company was worth $3.5 billion). Keith Hartman, an obstetrician to the well connected. The paths of both men crossed when Nick Curtis chaired St Vincent's and the Mater hospitals while Keith Hartman was chairman of the Friends of the Mater Foundation. In 2004, the mining boom launched the Curtis family from the lower north shore into the elite eastern suburbs surrounds of Woollahra with the purchase of a $7.7 million mansion belonging to talkback star John Laws. The family at one point rented out Hamilton Island's six-star luxury hotel resort Qualia for one daughter's wedding. There was a Palm Beach weekender and holidays in Port Douglas with the prominent Guth real estate family. Oliver would be granted access to a trust account linked to his father. Hartman and Curtis grew up wanting for nothing, enjoying an education under the Jesuits at Riverview, where the school motto Quantum Potes, Tantum Aude ("Dare to do as much as you can") was unintentionally prescient. Even after they graduated from high school, the two young men would get together two or three times a week, grabbing a beer, going to the movies, playing squash and, when they both began jobs in the finance industry, talking about the stockmarket. Hartman knows that the size of Orion's trades, with $7 billion in funds under management, can move stock prices. For a risk-taker who skipped university classes to hit the gaming tables at Sydney's Star casino, the temptation is irresistible. They start tossing an idea around. Hartman has the inside information. He can tip off Curtis, who can then take a position in a stock before Orion begins trading, effectively front-running it via an account Curtis will open with CMC Markets.

Over a few beers at the well-known brokers' haunt, The Republic Hotel, across the road from Curtis's office, the pair agree they will be in "a lot of shit" if they get caught. Using information not generally available to the market is a criminal offence, punishable at the time by a maximum penalty of five years' jail and/or a fine of $220,000. But they are egging one another on. Curtis, concerned about leaving a trail of SMSs and phone calls, suggests using the cutting-edge business device of the time, the BlackBerry, which contains encryption features that allow users to communicate secretly by "pinning" each other's messages. The technology is so secure, Curtis assures Hartman, that a satellite would have to be pulled from the sky to retrieve their messages. On the morning of May 23, 2007, the pair walk into an Optus World outlet in Sydney's CBD and Curtis buys his mate a BlackBerry. The next day Curtis takes a call from broker CMC Markets, confirming the account he has set up. It goes under the name Encounter Investments, sharing the name of a private company in which he is the sole shareholder and director. The dice are loaded. At 10.47am the following morning, Curtis places their first trade. He takes a long position in ERA, tipped off by Hartman about a pending trade from Orion that will likely push up the share price. By 2pm the share price is moving up as a big buyer joins the market. Hartman and Curtis are well ahead and want to cash out. On the phone to CMC broker Jamie Cann, Curtis immediately betrays the fact he is an uncertain newcomer. "Can you put the, ahh, umm, thirty two and a half out at $22.93 for me?" Curtis asks. Cann needs an account number. "Oh, I think it's 1201642 or something," Curtis replies.

Cann: "So you wanna get rid of all your ERA, do you?" Curtis: "Yeah." Cann: "32,500?" Curtis: "Yeah, at 22.93. Just put 'em out in the market." Cann sounds surprised by the request. "Ah, 32,500. Big trade."

Curtis: "Yeah, that's right." In about three hours, Curtis and Hartman make $10,917. There is no turning back. T​hree days after their first foray, they are at it again. Hartman gives the heads-up, and Curtis opens a short position in engineering company WorleyParsons on May 28. When the market opens the next morning, the stock is down on the back of another Orion order. Curtis closes the position and the pair pocket another $10,965. This is too easy. Curtis gets cocky a few days later, and grows increasingly carefree about the size of his orders. "Can you try and get some BOQs [Bank of Queensland] for me?" he asks his broker. "Whatever you can get me, twenty, 20,000, twenty-five, 50,000 if you can." But he's not across the detail when asked his price limit. "Ahh, mm, 18.05 something."

It doesn't matter. In the space of 48 minutes on May 31, they make $21,264. For the next year, this is their modus operandi: Hartman uses his inside information to tip Curtis into stocks and Curtis responds with a BlackBerry message such as "can't do it", "done" or "unfinished". Over that time, none of this raises suspicions of colleagues or superiors, much less market regulators. Just before the Queen's Birthday long weekend in 2007, less than a month after they have begun trading, Curtis emails Hartman as the market closes. It is time to enjoy the spoils. "Send me the link to the mini," Curtis writes. Quick as a flash, Hartman hits reply: "I priced one last night," costing it at $60,000. "You have to get one; they are awesome," Curtis writes back. "You should go and order one over the weekend."

"Shit yeah, it is awesome," agrees Hartman. "It's just a BMW but a small one. All the options are awesome; it would be the best car." "We will go and order one on the weekend," says Curtis. Sure enough, that Saturday, Hartman puts down a $2000 deposit for a $60,768 dark silver MINI Cooper R56 S at Rushcutters Bay's MINI Garage, Sydney. He emails Curtis and school friend James Auswild a picture of the car. Five days later Hartman withdraws $58,768 from his bank account – the amount outstanding on the car – from a $60,000 deposit made by Curtis. A week later, the duo make another killing. Shortly after the market opens on June 12, Curtis takes a large position in Computershare. An hour later he sells out at a profit of $10,325. A couple of minutes after closing the position, he takes a call from broker Andrew Knight: "Hey, Oli. All done and done on those CPUs [Computershare] for you."

"Cool," replies Curtis. "Not bad for an hour's work," the broker marvels. "Oh, not bad," says Curtis, as they both enjoy a laugh. Curtis will later boast to Hartman he is CMC's biggest client in Australia. In their first month, Curtis and Hartman make 18 trades, pocketing more than $228,000. Soon they will not bother with trades offering less than $20,000. Curtis frequently laps it up with his broker.

"That's a nice afternoon trade," his broker says. "Very good. Did we get 'em out at 75?" replies Curtis. Broker: "Yep yep. All done, dusted." Curtis: "You're the man! Umm, so what's that?" Broker: "24 grand."

Curtis: "That'll do, that'll do." Broker: "That's set you in good stead for the weekend." Curtis laughs. But he has other things on his mind. The time has come for some real fun. A two-week boys' own adventure with sports, gambling and girls. That's what Curtis is planning for Hartman and six friends (including at least three other Riverview "old boys") in Whistler, British Columbia (for skiing) and Las Vegas (for the blackjack tables and strip clubs). Around lunchtime on September 20, Curtis sends an email from his work address marked "high" importance: "Small change of heart. I have decided that the Jet would not be as good as spreading the love over the entire trip, so here we go. We now have Heli Jet picking us up on the 12th of Jan to transport us to Whistler. We then have the same chopper picking us up from Whistler on the 27th to take us back to Vancouver, as we all will be very hung over and not enjoy a two-hour drive."

But it won't be five-star all the way. "For the Vegas trip we have to settle for commercial flights, which will get us to Vegas around 2pm on the 28th (they are currently A$450). "Once in Vegas we have the following cars picking us up," he brags, attaching pictures of luxury vehicles. "We then have two 2 Bedroom Salon Suites awaiting for us at the Wynn (no cost to everyone)." Golf at the casino and Cirque de Soleil tickets will be thrown in free. The generous host saves the most enticing for last. "On top of this we have a healthy 'Entertainment' budget on hand for the two nights," teases Curtis, attaching a picture of the logo of Spearmint Rhino strip club and a bottle of champagne. "Watch our beautiful ladies on four stages ... VIP rooms, tables, booths and four full-service bars fill this opulent hotspot," the club's website boasts. "Indulge yourself in this spectacular one-of-a-kind gentlemen's club." Curtis will transfer $100,000 to Wynn Casino in Las Vegas. Hartman will later acknowledge their friends would have assumed Curtis was just being generous, adding he liked to "show off". A love of the punt pays off for Hartman, too, who will end up winning $20,000 on the Vegas baccarat tables. In October 2007, at the height of their daring illegal trading spree, Hartman emails Curtis a tip of a different kind, a book tip: Jesse Livermore: World's Greatest Stock Trader.

"This guy made 1 million in 1907," he writes. "About 3bn in today's money shorting the market ... could be you through CMC." In the subject line, he adds: "Oli 'CMC' Curtis". Livermore was a legendary American trader in the early 1900s, known as the Boy Plunger and the Great Bear of Wall Street for making – and losing – several multimillion-dollar fortunes, and for his short selling during the great stockmarket crashes of 1907 and 1929. One passage in the book, on the market's ability to create "fortunes beyond anyone's wildest dreams", appears to have become the young men's motto. "All the trader had to do was call the moves before they occurred – and, as with any great puzzle, the answer was always right there. All the trader had to do was figure it out." Or cheat. As Livermore would say: "The average man doesn't wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn't even wish to have to think." A few weeks later, on November 21, Hartman again signs Orion's personal trading policy, acknowledging that he knows what actions constitutes insider trading. Later that same day, Hartman and Curtis are back in the market, taking a big position in CSR. They hold the position overnight and pocket $37,200.

By early 2008, fresh from their trip to Whistler and Vegas, Hartman and Curtis are acting as if they are bulletproof. When Curtis's broker is late getting back to him with a trading update one afternoon, Curtis is busy. "Just slam any bid," he instructs. "I'm just on the golf course getting another beer, so I just want it all out!" Hartman and Curtis are now much more than great mates – they are co-conspirators, their partnership forged in the fire of naked criminal activity. They discuss moving in together, trading emails about luxury properties. They both like one property, but as Curtis jokes, "got 10mill??? ha". They choose a luxury apartment behind the Bondi Icebergs club where, they muse, they can sit on a terrace with a beer and "perv" on the beautiful people enjoying the coastal walk, using their profits to cover the $3000-a week rent. Curtis's then girlfriend, socialite Hermione Underwood (who would go on to manage model Lara Bingle), will share the apartment. "She is already looking at furniture and shit," Curtis emails. "IKEA is so cheap and perfectly good enough, they have everything from pots and pans to bed linen etc etc." Hartman's response? "Will she do all my washing for me?"

Curtis's comeback: "ha ha ... ask her?? haha na i am going to get a cleaning lady to come once a week and she can wash and iron etc as well. Will only cost like 200 a week." Throughout 2008, the high life is tempered by the realities of a share house. "Mate," Curtis emails Hartman, "we need to sort out the bill system at home as I have been paying for all the bills up to now but the one we just got for electricity for example is $2200 so we need to sort something out if possible." Hartman figures he has paid his dues, in advance. "Hey mate when we did the trading at the start of the year we did 70t [thousand] more than we needed – I assumed that this would cover all the bills." Curtis blinks: "OK, that's fine then. Can we at least then make a more conscious effort to lighten the use of electricity like turning off light etc …"

Incredibly, Curtis strikes money trouble. "I know this is a huge ask," he writes to Hartman, "but I was wondering if there was any chance of borrowing some money." He explains he has a "massive tax bill" and work owes him money. (Hartman later says both may have a gambling problem and that he himself used cocaine.) Continues Curtis: "It's been a f….d few months and I can't sell anything out of the trust because the old man will find out." Curtis promises to pay Hartman back "as soon as I get the money" and "I will also ask my old man for some when he gets back from overseas. If it's possible it would be a MASSIVE favor and I would owe you big time. I don't want to put you in an awkward position either so no worries if it's too hard." And in a nod to their secret: "You are the only one I can ask and trust really." Hartman replies: "I can give you 200t... is that enough. I need it by January, though, to pay tax bill myself."

But the loan falls through. Hartman tells Curtis the account he held with his father "that I thought was flush with cash" is empty. It's around this time Hartman re-assesses the deal with his best mate. His financial position has changed. He issues a blunt message to Curtis: "I just can't keep on giving you this information." They enjoy an epic last hurrah. On June 11, 2008, Curtis short sells a huge stake in drilling company Boart Longyear that delivers their conspiracy's biggest payday. They make $200,000 in just nine seconds. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Two hundred grand. For Hartman, stopping the information flow is not about changing his ways, but cutting Curtis out. He decides to go it alone, using an account he set up with broker IG Markets shortly after he began at Orion. His solo trading is even more aggressive than with Curtis, earning $5.8 million over a few months, dwarfing the $1.432 million he shared with his mate. Hartman is more brazen, sometimes trading from his work computer. His behaviour, too, becomes bizarre: a report by psychiatrist Dr Craig Wilson, tendered to his 2011 appeal hearing, tells of Hartman lying in bed at night and using binoculars to read the trading figures on his computer.

In the midst of it all, an extraordinary message arrives from Hartman's brother Edward, a banker at Swiss investment bank UBS, with a shady business proposition. "I have got a way for us to make a lot of money," Ed Hartman emails from work in August. Ed offers his brother a part in fixing a horse race with controversial jockey Danny Nikolic. Ed demands secrecy. He encourages John to have someone else set up an account with gambling house Betfair that they can access. "I have a v high profile jockey that will have some v short priced losers for us to lay. But no one else can know other than you and me – that is v important," Ed writes. In a blatant attack on his friend and co-conspirator, John replies: "OK cool ... I will get [school friend James] auswild to do it as oli has to big a mouth ... if I buy auswild a few lap dances he would be happy just with that." John offers familiar advice: "There is a way on blackberrys ... the only way to get the records is by pulling the satellite out of the air." They hope to make $100,000. (Ed Hartman will later leave his job at UBS after the emails come to light during a committal hearing for Oliver Curtis. Nikolic will be banned from Australian race courses for threatening a steward in 2012, a decision overturned on appeal.)

Hartman's decision to trade solo spells the beginning of the end. He continues to trade forcefully, unperturbed by world financial markets going into freefall around September 2008 after the collapse of Wall Street financial services firm Lehman Bros. IG Markets becomes suspicious, alerting corporate regulator ASIC to its concerns. But it is Hartman's trades in January 2009 in mining company Riversdale that finally prompt IG Markets to act. IG Markets asks Hartman to provide approval from his employer for his trades for the previous year. Hartman, who has repeatedly signed statements to Orion that he has not traded, has a week to produce the approval or IG Markets will tell Orion. The game is up. Hartman panics. After several sleepless nights, he confesses. On Saturday, January 17, Keith Hartman is woken at 5.30am by the kind of call all parents fear. "I've done something dreadful," John tells his father. Within days, Keith Hartman engages leading Sydney solicitor Mark O'Brien, a man accustomed to representing the big end of town in high-profile cases. Hartman moves out of the Bondi flat while Curtis is in Port Douglas, baffling a visiting friend who thinks his clothes have been stolen. The following Wednesday, January 21 at 9.48am, the tape begins rolling on Hartman's sensational confession to dumbstruck ASIC investigators. While ASIC has been looking at Hartman's trading on his IG Markets account, it knows nothing of Curtis's trading with CMC Markets until Hartman confesses. Hartman even has to spell Curtis's name for them.

Hartman strikes a deal – he will plead guilty to 19 charges of insider trading and six of tipping and turn star witness against his friend. ASIC freezes $1.59 million that is left in Hartman's account when his own insider trading is discovered – a fraction of the $5.8 million he made. And he keeps the Ducati. From this point, Hartman's and Curtis's lives begin to diverge. While Curtis loses his job at Transocean after Hartman's confession to ASIC, he then sets up a business advisory business with his father and continues to travel the world for work. In December 2010, Hartman is sentenced to four-and-a-half years' jail (later reduced to 15 months on appeal). His tearful family watches him being taken away, his father laying blame on the "plastic" world that has corrupted his son. Incredibly, just a week later, Curtis appears in the social pages for the first time as the new beau of young PR high-flyer Roxy Jacenko. As Hartman sits in jail, spending his time working in the prison library, Jacenko and Curtis feature regularly in the social pages, including an appearance to show off her $200,000 engagement ring. They buy a four-bedroom luxury home in Woollahra for $6.6 million and start a family. In March 2012, 10 days after Hartman is released from jail, Curtis and Jacenko marry in a $1000-a-head extravaganza at Sydney restaurant Quay, costed at $250,000. Curtis gives his bride a white Ferrari convertible as a wedding gift. The Vera Wang wedding dress is reportedly flown in from Los Angeles on a first class seat after months of fittings.

In an interview with society reporter Kate Waterhouse, Jacenko is asked about Hartman's release and its impact on Curtis. "To be honest, we don't discuss it," she says. "It's an unfortunate situation on all fronts – for both parties ... It was before my time, I don't ask ... It's unfortunate what happened and it is good that it is finished because you don't want to see anyone go through that kind of thing." It is anything but finished. Having failed to pick up the illegal Curtis/Hartman market trading, regulators start to make up for it. Steered by Hartman's confession, ASIC's market integrity enforcement team is piecing together what happened. The wheels of justice grind slowly. In January 2013, as Curtis awaits a pizza delivery at home, he is served a court attendance notice. Two years later, when Curtis and Jacenko sell their home for more than $8 million, the federal police secures a freezing order on Curtis's share of the proceeds. He maintains his innocence. Each day, the cameras wait. Each day, they perform the same routine. In May 2016, Curtis stands trial in the NSW Supreme Court on one charge of conspiracy to commit insider trading. Every morning, Curtis, by now 31, dressed in a blue suit and tie, runs the media gauntlet with his wife. They clasp each other's hands tightly. Some days they smile and chat to each other, on other occasions they are tense and drawn. Jacenko, however, steals the headlines, posting pictures of her court attire to her social media following. On day three of the trial, more than seven years since they last saw each other, Hartman is waiting for Curtis in the witness box. He has returned from Western Australia, where he has started his life anew: he now has a family and is working for the private business interests of mining magnate Andrew Forrest.

(In Hartman's own earlier court case, his father Keith had laid bare his family's mental health issues. John's brother Alex was a prodigious teen technology talent who became a Young Australian of the Year for career achievement. Alex was diagnosed with serious bipolar disorder and involuntarily admitted to hospital for his safety. John was profoundly affected by Alex's diagnosis, undergoing significant changes in his own personality and behaviour. Keith told the court he was worried John, too, might be bipolar.) With puffy, often red eyes, Hartman tells a hushed court the now familiar story. His gaze never crosses Curtis's, who sits opposite. Curtis opts not to give evidence. The jury takes two days to reach a verdict. As the verdict is delivered, his father Nick closes his eyes and bows his head briefly. A tearful Jacenko embraces Nick. Oliver knows he is going to jail and quietly begins making preparations for life inside. He quits as director of a string of companies, including his private company Encounter Investments, in which he owns the only share. He leaves its operation in the hands of his wife, appointing Roxy sole director. In a withering judgment, Justice Lucy McCallum notes that white-collar crime is a choice freely made by well-educated people from privileged backgrounds, prompted by greed. She sentences Curtis to a minimum of one year's jail, noting he never accepted responsibility for his actions.

His mother Angela and wife Roxy weep. Curtis, resigned to his fate, takes off his tie, belt and wedding ring and is led away. (His appeal is listed for later this month.) It took the best part of a decade to play out, but the hopes, reputations and friendships of two young men had been laid to waste. Was it just greed? Certainly, Hartman admitted it was all about the money. But the irony was that both men already had it all. So was it privilege? Or a misplaced sense of entitlement? Or, more disturbingly, entirely normal behaviour for their industry? Insider trading is notoriously hard to prove, with high- profile convictions, like that of Rene Rivkin in 2003, a relatively rare occurrence. There are countless other examples of suspicious tips, nods and winks. The clubby world of financial markets meets and mingles over lunch, after-work drinks, the golf club. Last month, Darren Thompson, a vice-president in investment banking at Credit Suisse Management Australia, pleaded not guilty to insider trading, having allegedly procured a close friend, Michael William Hull, to buy shares for him. The pair, who met working at ANZ, were regular jogging buddies. Hull was jailed for 17 months in June. Hartman and Curtis are certainly not alone: they may well be among the unlucky few who get caught and wind up paying for their crimes in prison. Curtis's barrister, Murugan Thangaraj, SC, summed up the affair the most theatrically. The downfall of Curtis and Hartman, he said, had all the hallmarks of a "Greek tragedy".