Hedge Fund Executive Is Charged With Insider Trading

Federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York accused Raj Rajaratnam, 51, with illegally obtaining and trading on information on these companies, which also included Polycom, Hilton Hotels, Google and People Support. He was charged with four counts of conspiracy and nine counts of securities fraud. (Read the complaints after the jump.)

Others charged by prosecutors include Mark Kurland, the president of New Castle Partners, another large hedge fund; Danielle Chiesi, a former Bear Stearns executive who now works at New Castle; Rajiv Goel, an executive Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of Intel; Anil Kumar, an executive at McKinsey & Company; and Robert Moffatt, an executive at I.B.M.

All six were arrested Friday morning and are set to be arraigned in downtown Manhattan later Friday afternoon.

The prosecutors case is built on both statements from an unnamed cooperating witness, who has agreed to plead guilty, and from the recording of four conversations between the witness and Mr. Rajaratnam, according to the complaints.

Mr. Ratnaram, a native of Sri Lanka, is listed as No. 551 on Forbes’ 2009 list of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion.