For at least 13 years, big and small investors alike turned over their money to Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh, two New York money managers, in the belief that an “enhanced equity index’’ strategy was reaping them profits.

But prosecutors and regulators charge that the money instead filled the two men’s “personal piggy bank’’ and was spent on multi-million dollar homes, horses, luxury cars and collectible items such as rare books and Steiff teddy bears worth as much as $80,000 (£56,600).