* Prosecutors more aggressive in securities fraud
* CFTC lawyers may be embedded within Justice Dept
By Rachelle Younglai
NEW YORK, Nov 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department
sees wire taps as a crucial tool to root out securities fraud
as it collaborates more closely with market regulators, a
senior department official said on Friday, one day after new
charges were filed in the biggest U.S. hedge fund insider
trading scandal.
Federal authorities tapped phones to help unearth an
insider trading ring that includes the Galleon Group hedge
fund, other fund managers, Silicon Valley executives, traders
and lawyers.
Prosecutors have alleged $40 million of insider trading
profits from their investigation so far. The Securities and
Exchange Commission has alleged $53 million in illegal profits
from its own civil investigation.
"We have become more aggressive. I also think we have
become and we will continue to become more collaborative," said
Lanny Breuer, a senior Justice Department official who oversees
criminal prosecutions.
"It is both aggressive in trying to use whatever tools we
have to identify wrongdoing," he said one day after his agency,
the SEC and the FBI announced dozens of new charges in the
hedge fund insider trading scandal.
Breuer said the use of wire taps have and will prove to be
effective. "I think it's essential," he said at a Practising
Law Institute securities conference in New York.
The Justice Department is also creating partnerships as it
could with states, regulators and other authorities. He said he
was considering embedding lawyers from other agencies such as
the Commodity Futures Trading Commission within his
department.
"With limited resources, it seems to me the more people we
can bring into our family, so to speak, so we can hold those
accountable, we ought to do just that," he told reporters on
the sidelines of the conference.
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(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai, editing by Gerald E.
McCormick)
