Suspicious $580M Oil Trades Before Donald Trump’s Iran Announcement Raise Insider Trading Fears

An unusual case of speculation has come up in the oil market just prior to US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would delay a possible attack on Iran. BBC data has shown a sharp increase in trading volume just 15 minutes prior to the announcement, which allowed some traders to make profits from a sharp fall in oil prices.

At 06:49 am ET, bets were placed on 733 WTI crude contracts on NYMEX, which increased to 2,007 in a minute. This translates to deals worth $170 million, or ₹1,400 crore (around $1.24 billion).

Similarly, Brent crude contracts saw a surge from 20 to over 1,600 trades within a minute, valued at $150 million (approximately $1.24 billion). Typically, such large trades do not occur at this time on Monday mornings, further fueling suspicion about this activity. Traders who had placed bets in advance reaped substantial profits.

Mukesh Sahdev, chief oil analyst at XAnalysts, described this trading pattern as clearly unusual. He said there were no signs of serious talks between the US and Iran at the time, so betting on such a large oil price drop seemed unrealistic. Rachel Winter, a partner at Killick & Co., said many investors purchased such contracts just before Trump's announcement, hoping to profit from a fall in oil prices.

This isn't the first time speculation has escalated around developments related to US foreign policy. In January, huge bets were placed on the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on a crypto-based platform called Polymarket. He was captured by US forces just hours later, leaving one account with a profit of more than $436,000 on a $32,537 bet.