Prosecutors yesterday stepped up their crackdown on Wall Street insider trading, revealing criminal charges against 14 people, including a hedge fund executive who allegedly handed out pre-paid cell phones to tipsters so they could avoid detection.

The charges are related to the case revealed three weeks ago against Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon hedge fund, and five other people accused in an insider trading scheme involving information gathered from executives or employees at companies including IBM, Intel and Moody's Investors Service.