Forget terrorists, mobsters and gang leaders. What really makes Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor lose sleep at night is Internet crime. “Of all the issues I face as United States attorney — and there are many, many things that I have to deal with that are scary — cyber threat in all of its breadth, variety and complexity is what worries me the most,” Preet Bharara said at a conference Thursday.
Bharara, who has been U.S. attorney since 2009, said he established a unit within his office to target complex frauds, including cyber-crime. He pointed to his office’s prosecution of former Societe Generale SA trader Samarth Agrawal and former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov for stealing computer code. His prosecutors also worked with the FBI and NASA to bust an international scam that netted at least $14 million in fraudulent advertising fees.