Prosecutors allege that the defendants generated more than $25 million in illicit gains by exchanging privileged information about quarterly earnings and takeover activities at a number of companies, including Hilton Hotels and Google.

Since the arrests, the media has been fed further allegations on a daily basis about America’s largest hedge fund insider dealing case. Recent twists include insinuations that Galleon had paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Wall Street banks in return for non-public company information.

New York’s fascination with the case hinges not just on its size, but also on the high-profile defendants, the deeper issues it raises about the nature of insider trading and the damage that it has done to the already tarnished image of the hedge fund industry.

Wiretaps used by the investigators, which are reminiscent of the tactics used against gangsters, have also spiced up the case.

So too have some quotes from Securities and Exchange Commission officials who said that Mr Rajaratnam’s exploitation of his business contacts made him a “master of the Rolodex” rather than a “master of the universe”.

In addition to the civil charges being brought by the SEC, Preet Bharara, the US Attorney in Manhattan, has brought criminal charges against the six, warning that the case should serve a wake-up call for Wall Street.

Mr Rajaratnam, 52, who has been released on $100 million bail (which he is seeking to reduce to $25 million), insists that the charges against him are baseless.

Sent as a child from his home in Sri Lanka to be educated in Britain, at Sussex University, and in the US, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, he has turned the immigrant dream into reality by creating a hedge fund that made him a billionaire.