A billionaire investor and executives from some of America’s most prestigious companies have been arrested and charged with insider trading. Hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam and senior figures from IBM, McKinsey and Intel Corp were taken into custody after investigators on Wall Street used evidence from wire taps for the first time.

“This case should be a wake-up call to Wall Street,” said US attorney Preet Bharara. “It should be a wake-up call for every hedge fund manager and every Wall Street trader and every corporate executive who is even thinking about engaging in insider trading. As the defendants in this case have now learned the hard way, they may have been privy to a lot of confidential information, but there was one secret they did not know: that we were listening.” All the defendants are accused of fraud and conspiracy to use inside knowledge in trading stocks from a range of companies on Wall Street. It’s said they made more than 20 million dollars in illegal profits over three years.More about: Markets, USA

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