NY prosecutors: Insider trading tips cited on tape

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Mar 30, 10:14 PM EDT
NY prosecutors: Insider trading tips cited on tape
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Wall Street hedge fund manager accused in the biggest insider trading case in history bragged in a 2008 conference call about making a massive illegal trade only moments before the market closed and in another call about being tipped by a Goldman Sachs board member that the company would lose money, according to prosecutors who played tapes of the calls Wednesday at his trial.

Speaking to three of his employees in one call, Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam called it a "big drama" - one that prosecutors say began with an inside tip from a Goldman Sachs board member right after the board agreed to accept a blockbuster offer from Warren Buffet to pump $5 billion into the struggling investment bank.

"I got a call at 3:58, right?" Rajaratnam says on the tape heard by a Manhattan jury. "Saying something good might happen to Goldman, right?"

Immediately after getting the tip, Rajaratnam called in an order for $43 million in Goldman stock, prosecutors said.



Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEDGE_FUND_INSIDER_TRADING?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[tanyev]

1. There used to be a time when Wall Street thugs at least pretended they weren't breaking the law.

Wasn't there?

[PoliticAverse]

2. In public he did claim he wasn't breaking the law,

but it seems there are these tapes...