A piggish hedge fund hotshot who ranks among the world's richest men was charged by the feds Friday with making millions of dollars on insider-trading tips.
Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of the New York-based Galleon Group, was among six people charged in what federal prosecutors labeled the largest-ever hedge fund insider-trading case.
"The defendants operated in a cozy world of you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said at a news conference announcing the arrests.
Rajaratnam, who Forbes ranked as No. 559 on its 2009 list of the world's billionaires, was snared in a $20 million insider-trading case touted by the authorities for its first-ever use of court-authorized wiretaps against Wall Street big wheels.
"They may have been privy to a lot of inside information, but there was one secret they did not know - and that was that we were listening," Bharara said.
The six suspects are accused of having enriched themselves by using non-public information about companies that included Google, Hilton Hotels and Sun Microsystems.
Some of their conversations intercepted by investigators via wiretap are detailed in the federal criminal complaint.
"I'm dead if this leaks," Danielle Chiesi, who worked for the one-time equity hedge fund group of Bear Stearns Asset Management, is quoted as saying. "I'll be like Martha f------ Stewart."
Rajaratnam, whose fortune was pegged by Forbes as $1.3 billion, is accused of being at the heart of several insider trades by leading Galleon Technology Funds to make dirty deals off privileged information.
Authorities said the Sri Lankan hedge fund guru used his high-level contacts at other Wall Street firms to engage others in the scheme.
"He is not a master of the universe," said Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange Commission. "He is a master of the Rolodex."
The others charged include Mark Kurland, a top executive at New Castle Funds; Rajiv Goel, a director at Intel's investment arm; Anil Kumar, an executive with the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and Robert Moffat, a senior vice president at IBM.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/10/16/2009-10-16_hedge_fund_billionaire_exdirectors_at_bear_sterns_charged_in_20m_insider_trading.html#ixzz0TMTxywQn
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