Powerful US DA Preet Bharara Brings Down Indian Founder Of ShopClues’

WASHINGTON – Manhattan’sIndo-American U.S. AttorneyPreet Bharara has broughtdown yet another insider traderwith a former Indian internetanalyst Sandeep Aggarwal pleadingguilty.Aggarwal, who admitted toproviding inside informationabout a pending deal betweenMicrosoft and Yahoo to a portfoliomanager at SAC Capital,would be the 76th person convictedin Bharara’s four-year insidertrading crackdown.Other prominent convictionsobtained by Bharara,dubbed “Sheriff of Wall Street”by Time magazine, include thoseof India-born former GoldmanSachs director Rajat Gupta andhis Sri Lankan hedge fund billionairefriend Raj Rajaratnam.The manager, Richard Lee,pleaded guilty to insider tradingin July and SAC this week agreedto plead guilty to criminal chargesand pay a record $1.2 billionpenalty. Aggarwal, 40, a formeranalyst for San Francisco-basedCaris & Co, who has residencesin San Jose, California, and inGurgaon, in India’s Haryanaprovince, was accused of leveraginghis tech industry contactsfor the alleged misconduct in2009.Aggarwal is also founderand former CEO of ShopClues.com described as India’s first andlargest managed marketplace.Last month, co-founder SanjaySethi took over from Aggarwalas ShopClues CEO.Aggarwal might face 25years in prison when he’s sentencedand may also be deportedto India, although he has apparentlyagreed to cooperate withprosecutors in the hope of receivinga lenient sentence.FBI agents arrested Aggarwallast July and charged himwith one count of conspiracy tocommit securities fraud and onecount of conspiracy to commitwire fraud. A day later, Aggarwalwas, however, released on a$500,000 bond.Harvard-educated Bharara,45, has vowed to keep up hiscrusade, saying he has the “greatestjob in the world” though hewill “walk the earth and get intoadventures” whenever he retires.