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H/t AP photo
I’ve been waiting for this!! The Bernie Madoff story was good but I was waiting for a Wall Street arrest on someone who affected all of us. Billionaire Raj Rajarantnam may be that man. He, along with five others were arrested today for alleged insider trading.
The New York Daily News is all over this one.
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.
Crossposted at the Progressive Electorate. Please share a post with us!
Other juicy quotes from that story
“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.”
That’s by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara! Wow, what a soundbite, who is this guy? Anyone know of Mr. Bharara’s work?
“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.”
I think MSNBC’s show Lockup might be getting some new viewers this weekend, as six of Wall Street’s finest think about which prison gang they will be joining for protection.
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There’s more than one way to bring accountability to Wall Street. We desperately need new regulations, but we can check their greed as well with anti-trust action, collective OUTRAGE, prosecuting crooks, closing tax loopholes. We’ve gotta make them too big to fail, and too afraid to fail us again.
but let the real major players, i.e., Goldman Sachs, alone. Assuming the SEC works in consonance with Treasury, what is the purpose?
you’ve just decaffeinated my espresso, but I would prefer that every morning include news like this – each and every day, another wall street thief or six behind bars … now, a half dozen bankers or murderers-by-spreadsheet insurance execs in the pokey and I’d be cured of any need for caffein at all!
Yeah, that would do it.
many more to go.
Tell the Feds I got a list of names as well as their crimes if they need help.
How a schmuck like me knows everything all the way down to the details of their crimes and the Feds don’t has always been a wonder to me.
The others? Well, this is sorta like letting the little banks fail. So the big banks can get bigger.
This story is BULLSHIT!
“They didn’t know we were listening.”
YES THEY DID. They just didn’t care because for the entire duration of the existence of the warrantless wiretapping program, the listeners have been GOING ALONG WITH IT.
These guys are sacrificial lambs.
I suppose we are all supposed to jump up and down for joy that they “got caught”. Indeed, I guess we are supposed to nod our heads wisely and be glad that “they” were “listening”.
“They” have been listening ALL ALONG, but there have been no arrests because the listeners have been GOING ALONG with the insider trading and ALLOWING IT TO HAPPEN. Who, I ask you, is policing THEM?
How the fuck do you think Bernie Madoff got away with all the shit he did for DECADES, people? I mean, REALLY!
This investigation and arrest are window dressing to make the general public feel better about warrantless wiretapping. It means about as much as the equally publicized, high profile arrest of Martha Stewart. It’s Rovian BS, and it’s designed to distract you from other issues.