Zeenews Bureau
New York: The FBI has charged 14 people including four Indian in a case related to the USD 20 million hedge fund insider-trading scam, the largest ever such case in the US. Five of the accused have already pleaded guilty.
The four Indians were identified as Anil Kumar, Rajiv Goel, Deep Shah and Gautham Shankar.
Anil Kumar and Rajiv Goel (both 51) were arrested last month for allegedly committing the fraud. While Goel was the director in strategic investments at Intel Corp's investment arm, Anil Kumar was working as the director at global management-consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
According to media reports, Deep Shah, a former analyst at Moody's Investors Service, has been charged with passing on tips about Blackstone Group USD 26 billion takeover of Hilton Hotels before the deal was made public.
FBI said in a statement on Thursday that newly charged persons also included a former employee of Moody's Investor Service, identified as Deep Shah who has been charged with conspiracy and securities fraud.
Of the 14, eight were arrested yesterday while a ninth was being sought. Five other defendants had already been charged and have pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to insider trading crimes.
Atheros Communications Inc executive Ali Hariri has been charged with passing on confidential information to a hedge fund manager Ali Far who has pleaded guilty of fraud and is now reportedly cooperating with the investigators.
"People will probably ask just how pervasive is insider trading these days? Is this just the tip of the iceberg? We aim to find out," said Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Tamil-origin billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of Galleon Group, has received 13 charges, four counts of conspiracy and eight counts of security fraud.
Five others have been arrested in the case involving the passage of insider information to trade securities in several publicly traded companies, including Google Inc and Hilton Hotels between 2006 and 2007.
Galleon Group is a hedge fund with up to USD 7 billion in assets under management. Out of the USD 20 million, Rajaratnam alone made USD 12.7 million in illegal profits for Galleon.
This is the first case to use authorised wiretaps and the
investigators are still on the job.
Inputs from Agencies