Federal agents arrest six in largest hedge-fund scheme in US history
NEW YORK (AP) — One of America’s wealthiest men was among six hedge fund managers and corporate executives arrested Friday in a hedge fund insider trading case that prosecutors say generated more than $25 million in illegal profits and should be a wake-up call for Wall Street.
Raj Rajaratnam, a partner in Galleon Management and a portfolio manager for Galleon Group, a hedge fund with up to $7 billion in assets under management, was accused of conspiring with others to trade based on insider information about several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc.
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara told a news conference it was the largest hedge fund case ever prosecuted and marked the first use of court-authorized wiretaps to capture conversations by suspects in an insider trading case.
He said the case should cause financial professionals considering insider trades in the future to wonder whether law enforcement is listening.
“Greed is not good,” Bharara said. “This case should be a wake-up call for Wall Street.”
Joseph Demarest Jr., the head of the New York FBI office, said it was clear that “the 20 million dollars in illicit profits come at the expense of the average public investor.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which brought separate civil charges, said the scheme generated more than $25 million in illegal profits.
Robert Khuzami, director of enforcement at the SEC, said the charges show Rajaratnam’s “secret of success was not genius trading strategies.”
“He is not the master of the universe. He is a master of the Rolodex,” Khuzami said.
Galleon Group LLP said in a statement it was shocked to learn of Rajaratnam’s arrest at his apartment. “We had no knowledge of the investigation before it was made public and we intend to cooperate fully with the relevant authorities,” the statement said.
The firm added that Galleon “continues to operate and is highly liquid.”
Rajaratnam, 52, was ranked No. 559 by Forbes magazine this year among the world’s wealthiest billionaires, with a $1.3 billion net worth.
Rajaratnam — born in Sri Lanka and a graduate of University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business — has been described as a savvy manager of billions of dollars in technology and health-care hedge funds at Galleon, which he started in 1996. The firm is based in New York City with offices in California, China, Taiwan and India. He lives in New York.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Rajaratnam obtained insider information and then caused the Galleon Technology Funds to execute trades that earned a profit of more than $12.7 million between January 2006 and July 2007. Other schemes garnered millions more, authorities said.
A spokesman for Rajaratnam did not immediately return a phone call for comment Friday.
The timing of the arrests might be explained by a footnote in the complaint against Rajaratnam. In it, an FBI agent said he had learned that Rajaratnam had been warned to be careful and that Rajaratnam, in response, had said that a former employee of the Galleon Group was likely be wearing a “wire.”
The agent said he learned from federal authorities that Rajaratnam had obtained a plane ticket to fly from Kennedy International Airport to London on Friday and to return to New York from Geneva, Switzerland next Thursday.
Also charged in the scheme are Rajiv Goel, 51, of Los Altos, Calif., a director of strategic investments at Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corp., Anil Kumar, 51, of Santa Clara, Calif., a director at McKinsey & Co. Inc., a global management consulting firm, and Robert Moffat, 53, of Ridgefield, Conn., senior vice president and group executive at International Business Machines Corp.’s Systems and Technology Group.
The others charged in the case were identified as Danielle Chiesi, 43, of New York City, and Mark Kurland, 60, also of New York City.
According to court papers, Chiesi worked for New Castle, the equity hedge fund group of Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc. that had assets worth about $1 billion under management. Kurland is a top executive at New Castle.