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The massive federal insider-trading investigation has widened to include several major financial firms. Subpoenas have been issued to Janus Capital Group Inc., Wellington Management Co., Citadel LLC and SAC Capital Advisors requesting data on trading and other areas.

The culmination of an insider-trading investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation comes with the seizure of documents at a number of hedge funds. The probe threatens to affect masses of bankers, hedge-fund managers, securities traders, and other financial professionals.

A three-year-long investigation by federal authorities into insider trading is set to spread a wide net to catch mutual-fund traders, financial analysts, investment bankers, consultants and hedge fund managers all across the United States. Wide-ranging insider-trading rings that raked in tens of millions of dollars are the focus of the probe.

Although financier Bernard Madoff was convicted and imprisoned for his Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of billions of dollars, the investigation continues and has snared two of his employees at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. Annette Bongiorno and JoAnn 'Jodi' Crupi were indicted on charges they had a major part in defrauding investors and investigators.

Former Enron President Jeffrey Skilling, who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 24 years in prison, and has served four years so far, is appealing his conviction in light of the United States Supreme Court finding that the United States Department of Justice improperly applied the so-called 'honest services' law. Skilling is presenting his case before a panel of judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Alan Hevesi, once the state comptroller of New York, is close to entering a guilty plea in the case of corruption surrounding the state's public employee pension fund. The three-year investigation has focused on activities of Hevesi's aide David Logisci and Hank Morris, his political adviser, who both allegedly required payments be made by money managers to Morris in order to secure contracts from the pension fund.

Bonnie Hoxie, a former employee of Walt Disney Co., entered a guilty plea to charges of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud and wire fraud. Hoxie and boyfriend Yonni Sebbag attempted to sell financial information on Disney's operations to various hedge funds. Sebbag has pleaded guilty previously to the same charges as Hoxie, who is looking at four to ten months in jail, in accordance with federal sentencing guidelines.

The investigation into the failed Times Square bombing plot earlier this year has expanded to include the arrest of Mohammad Younis, who has been charged with supplying thousands of dollars to Faisal Shahzad, the perpetrator of the plot who has pleaded guilty. The money was given to Younis by way of a hawala a non-licensed money transfer business.

Sergey Aleynikov, formerly a vice-president at The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was indicted on charges of stealing computer codes for one of the company's high-frequency electronic trading systems last February. One of the charges, that he accessed a company computer illegally, was dismissed by a judge, but Oleynikov still faces the charges of transportation of stolen property and theft of trade secrets.

Trustee Irving Picard has asked for $34.6 million in legal fees for himself and his firm for working for four months to sort out the assets of convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff and return those assets to the investors who were defrauded, Now, some of those investors have objected to the steep fees Picard and company are receiving in a filing to a judge.

A $298 million settlement between the United States Department of Justice and Barclays PLC over charges of violation of economic sanctions originally met with the disapproval of U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who halted the deal, seeking clarification. Now, Sullivan has given his approval for the deal to go through.

Irving Picard, the trustee who is handling the assets of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities in order to give restitution to investors who lost money with convicted financier Bernard Madoff, has filed suit against Fairfield Greenwich Advisors L.L.C., alleging that employees of the largest feeder of funds to Madoff had knowledge of his Ponzi scheme and profited by the knowledge.