商业报道:华尔街惊爆史上最大规模对冲基金内幕交易

"Colleen, it's the biggest insider-trading case having to do with the hedge fund, specifically. And basically, what it is, is you also have at the top of the indictment¹, the 559th listed Forbes individual, who’s worth something like 1.3 billion dollars, that obviously gives it more media attention and scrutiny². But basically, it's an insider-trading case saying that material non-public information, information not available to the public, was traded on, which defrauds³ the markets, and defrauds the public. So, you know, it's a large case, but, the amount, certainly by the standards of the Madoff case, is not, you know, as big as that. But, they're describing it as the big case, so, you, but, you know…"

"Yea, so, we call it a big case, but you know, how big a surprise is this to you, because you know, when you’re talking about hedge fund, so money, so much money, is that at play. And, you know, one assumes the temptation is so large. I mean, look these managers aren't getting 37% returns for nothing, right?"

"I think you make a great point, Colleen, because the point is, they have lots of money under management, and people aren't necessarily calling for all of that money, all of the time, so of course, it's very very tempting⁴ to misappropriate the money. And the biggest surprise of all, though, and this was brought up in the introduction for the case, is that a wiretap was used. That's not that common in an insider-trading case. It's usually reserved for different areas of law organized crime, things like that. And I actually, had an occasion to look just very quickly at some of the quotes, you know, that are in the media, coming off of those wiretaps. Um, I mean, you know, that can be very very damaging, because those are the words of the people charged right out of their own maps, so, yea."

"Yeah, I wanna ask you more about the wiretap thing in a minute in the show, but you've already mentioned one of the world's richest man, we've been showing the picture of him. So I wanna bring that in now, may we can pop those pictures back up, but that person you mentioned is someone named Raj Rajaratnam. Now he is interesting, now these are just allegations at this point I wanna make sure. But he’s among the six executives busted⁵. This guy, Raj, Rajaratnam, born in Sri Lanka, graduated from the Wharton School of Business, pretty prestigious⁶ school, right, runs a hedge fund at Galleon⁷, a company that he started in the late 90s. Forbes Magazine put him at No.559 among the world's wealthiest billionaires. He’s got a net worth of what, 1.3 billion dollars and we've also learned that he contributed the money to President Obama's presidential campaign. I mean, I guess maybe that's the typical resume of a hedge fund manger, right?"

"Well, yeah, that and also the disappointing fact that in the recent period of the last year so, you know, you see Madoff was head of NASDAQ at one point, you see other prominent people, and becomes even more disappointing, Colleen, to see people who you would think have some modicum⁸ of creditability, um, you know, and wholesomeness⁹, and you find them right in the middle of a very very intense set of you know, fraudulent facts. So that’s disappointing."

"I should mention too, he's got offices in California, China, Taiwan, India. He lives in New York, we'll quick, if you will, on the issue of the wiretaps."

"Sure."

"Um, is that gonna send a bit of chill for other hedge fund managers?"

"No, no, I think that's a good point I mean. Um, I think that may be part of the reason why law enforcement did that to say everybody is beyond notice now. While it’s unusual to get a wiretap in an insider-trading case, or securities fraud case, we're gonna do that. So I think we'll send the big message, I think that's right."

Vocabulary:

1. wiretap: the action of secretly listening to other people's telephone conversations, by connecting something to the wires of their telephone

2. Galleon: Gallen Group is one of the largest hedge funds in the world, which was founded by Raj Rajaratnam in 1997.

1 indictment   

n.起诉；诉状

参考例句：

• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。
• They issued an indictment against them.他们起诉了他们。

2 scrutiny   

n.详细检查，仔细观察

参考例句：

• His work looks all right,but it will not bear scrutiny.他的工作似乎很好，但是经不起仔细检查。
• Few wives in their forties can weather such a scrutiny.很少年过四十的妻子经得起这么仔细的观察。

3 defrauds   

v.诈取，骗取( defraud的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He often defrauds others of their money. 他经常骗别人的钱。 来自辞典例句

4 tempting   

a.诱人的, 吸引人的

参考例句：

• It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
• It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。

5 busted   

adj. 破产了的，失败了的，被降级的，被逮捕的，被抓到的 动词bust的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You are so busted! 你被当场逮住了！
• It was money troubles that busted up their marriage. 是金钱纠纷使他们的婚姻破裂了。

6 prestigious   

adj.有威望的，有声望的，受尊敬的

参考例句：

• The young man graduated from a prestigious university.这个年轻人毕业于一所名牌大学。
• You may even join a prestigious magazine as a contributing editor.甚至可能会加入一个知名杂志做编辑。

7 galleon   

n.大帆船

参考例句：

• The story of a galleon that sank at the start of her maiden voyage in 1628 must be one of the strangest tales of the sea.在1628年，有一艘大帆船在处女航开始时就沉没了，这个沉船故事一定是最神奇的海上轶事之一。
• In 1620 the English galleon Mayfolwer set out from the port of Southampton with 102 pilgrims on board.1620年，英国的“五月花”号西班牙式大帆船载着102名

8 modicum   

n.少量，一小份

参考例句：

• If he had a modicum of sense,he wouldn't do such a foolish thing.要是他稍有一点理智，他决不会做出如此愚蠢的事来。
• There's not even a modicum of truth in her statement.她说的话没有一点是真的。

9 wholesomeness   

卫生性

参考例句：