When Wu Jian, a star quant at hedge fund Two Sigma, bragged on Chinese social media platform RedNote that he'd earned "wealth beyond imagination," few imagined the post would help unravel a US$165-million fraud.
The 34-year-old Chinese national now faces United States charges of securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering after allegedly manipulating at least 14 investment models to inflate his pay. Wu is currently considered a fugitive.
Two Sigma is a New York–based hedge fund with more than US$60 billion in assets under management.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, New York City, and the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wu secretly altered Two Sigma's algorithms between November 2021 and August 2023.
By tweaking the models he built or co-developed, Wu allegedly made them mimic predictions from existing strategies, sidestepping the firm's rule that new models must be "uncorrelated."
The overlapping strategies misled Two Sigma into believing it provided unique insights, but instead exposed client accounts to the same market risks – leading to losses of at least US$165 million, which the firm later reimbursed.
Wu's LinkedIn page
Wu's RedNote post in 2023 flaunted his extraordinary income, circulated widely in Chinese financial circles. The brag reportedly drew attention that helped spur closer scrutiny of his work.
A Tsinghua University engineering graduate with a Cornell PhD, Wu joined Two Sigma in 2018 after interning at Citadel Securities.
The SEC said his manipulated performance metrics inflated his compensation: in 2022 alone, he received about US$23.5 million, part of which he used to buy a Manhattan apartment.
The agency has canceled about US$8 million in performance grants awarded to Wu in 2021 and 2022, but he has retained roughly US$17.8 million in cash bonuses.
In a 2023 post on RedNote, Wu wrote "I have earned wealth beyond imagination. Immature as I am inside, I just want to show the number in a place where no one knows me."
Wu Jian in New York.
In the summer of 2023, Two Sigma's management noticed unusually high correlations among several models and launched an internal probe. Wu was fired in 2024, and the firm compensated the affected clients.
On September 11, 2025, federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed criminal charges, while the SEC brought a parallel civil lawsuit seeking to claw back illicit gains, impose fines, and bar Wu from working in the investment advisory industry.