Billionaire implicated in stock scheme

Prosecutors also arrested Rajiv Goel, who worked at Intel Capital as a director in strategic investments, Anil Kumar, who worked as a director at McKinsey & Co., and IBM Corp. executive Robert Moffat. The former officials at Bear Stearns Asset Management were Danielle Chiesi and Mark Kurland, who were affiliated with the firm’s New Castle Partners, which managed about $1 billion.

“The defendants operated in a world of, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back,’’ US Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said at a press conference yesterday. “Greed, sometimes, is not good.’’

It’s the largest hedge fund insider trading case, Bharara said, and the first time wiretaps have been used to target insider trading, signaling the government will now use the same tools against Wall Street that it employs in organized crime and drug cases. Bharara called the case unprecedented.

Tips came from insiders and others at hedge funds, investor relations firms, and companies including Intel, IBM, McKinsey, and companies whose shares were traded in the scheme, Bharara said. The prosecutor said the investigation was continuing and declined to say whether others would be charged.

Rajaratnam and his firm garnered from $17 million to $18 million from the fraud, Bharara said. In recent days, he might have been aware he was under investigation. According to one of two criminal complaints filed yesterday, he told an acquaintance that he believed a former employee was wearing a wire. Rajaratnam bought a plane ticket on Oct. 14 for travel to London yesterday, the complaint said.