Feds Bust Insider Trading Scheme 'Without Precedent'

Federal prosecutors have slapped SAC Capital Advisors with criminal charges in an alleged insider trading scheme "on a scale without known precedent." The hedge fund has allegedly been making hundreds of millions off of illicit info for a decade, the Wall Street Journal reports. The charges also name several individual traders; former portfolio manager Richard Lee, for instance, is accused of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

SAC founder Steven A. Cohen isn't in the criminal complaint, although the SEC is trying to get him banned from managing client money for life in a separate civil suit. The government is also using a civil suit to attempt to seize all of SAC's assets. "The message that's coming loud and clear from the government is they're not going to tolerate insider trading on Wall Street," one former US attorney observes. "They don't care how powerful the target is." Read the indictment here. (More SAC Capital Advisors stories.)