E-Paper
'Lankan hedge fund accused was probed for LTTE fund raising'
A Sri Lanka-born US billionaire, charged in the largest ever hedge-fund insider trading case in America, was probed earlier for allegedly raising funds for the LTTE, a media report said today.
A Sri Lanka-born US billionaire, charged in the largest ever hedge-fund insider trading case in America, was probed earlier for allegedly raising funds for the LTTE, a media report said on Sunday.
Six persons, including two Indian Americans and the Sri Lankan-origin man, were arrested in connection with the USD 20 million hedge-fund fraud on Friday.
As part of the probe, investigators uncovered documents showing that Tamil-origin Raj Rajaratnam was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in US whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the Tamil Tigers, the Wall Street Journal said, quoting people familiar with the probe.
Rajaratnam, 52, founder of the Galleon Group, was arrested along with two Indian Americans, Anil Kumar (51) and Rajiv Goel (51), and three others in the hedge-fund scam.
He was charged with securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. However, there appears to be no connection between the two investigations, the paper said.
Prosecutors have alleged that Rajaratnam and his co-conspirators earned USD 20 million in improper gains.
Rajaratnam's attorney Jim Walden said his client was innocent and will fight the insider-trading charges, the Journal said.
He also said that the Tamil-origin billionaire had made charitable donations "to rebuild homes" destroyed by the devastating tsunami in Sri Lanka and other Indian Ocean nations in 2004, but had no links to LTTE, it said.
