The recent federal prosecutions of Raj Rajaratnam and Rajat K. Gupta for violating federal securities laws prohibiting insider trading introduced the business community, Wall Street and the general public to investigative techniques that previously had been the province of narcotics and organized crime prosecutions. Though in the past wiretapping had been employed in other types of cases,1 the use of wiretapping in an insider trading case was novel. Moreover, the government appears to be committed to the ongoing investigation of insider trading and so-called "expert-network" firms, and wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance undoubtedly will play a part in such prosecutions.2
Many of the techniques used in the Rajaratnam case and its successors were originally developed in the context of prosecutions of organized crime figures.3 Mob bosses quickly learned that the sound of their own voice on tape provided veritably insurmountable evidence of guilt. Indeed, it was so well-known that such commentary could lead to conviction that one mob figure, Genovese family boss Vincent "the Chin" Gigante, forbade underlings from uttering his name or nickname in conversations or telephone calls.4
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