A Houston man is set to don prison garb for a $1.7 million insider trading scheme, exploiting his wife's insider knowledge, federal prosecutors said. Tyler Loudon, 42, has been handed a two-year sentence for his fraudulent stock trades after pleading guilty on Feb. 22, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Loudon leveraged privileged information from his wife, an associate manager in mergers and acquisitions for an international oil and gas company. He surreptitiously made a killing on the stock market, acquiring 46,450 shares of a travel center business before the announcement of its acquisition by his spouse's employer, said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani. “Insider trading is rampant, extremely difficult to uncover and adversely affects the integrity of the financial markets and the public perception of the markets,” Hamdani stated.

Judge Sim Lake stressed the need for a significant sentence of incarceration to uphold the law's respect and deter similar crimes in the future. Following his 24-month stint behind bars, Loudon faces a year of supervised release, as laid out during the sentencing. The FBI's probe, with help from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, peeled back the layers of Loudon's scheme.

Authorities revealed that Loudon bagged a massive $1.7 million profit by fully capitalizing on the travel center's stock surge, following the acquisition news publicized by his wife's company. “Mr. Loudon took advantage of his and his wife’s ‘work from home’ situation and betrayed his spouse by eavesdropping on her confidential business calls to realize a profit of $1.7M in less than two months,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams disclosed.

Before the sentence was passed down, Loudon was compelled to give up the illegal windfall to Uncle Sam. He's now set to surrender himself to a federal prison at an undetermined date. Karen M. Lansden, the assistant U.S. Attorney, spearheaded the prosecution.