The crackdown on an alleged insider trading ring involving Galleon, the New York hedge fund, and a cast of supporting characters must have fund managers’ well-informed friends shaking in their Ferragamo loafers. US authorities, who snared a further 14 people this week, have attacked the case with the gusto usually reserved for mafia bosses; the Galleon probe is the first to make use of wiretaps. Those rumbled so far – lawyers, consultants and executives, some with ties going back to business school – are the kind of people any fund manager might shake down for advice. In a world where hedge funds routinely enjoy access to “colour” unavailable to brokers’ regular clients, the line between insider information and insight is a fuzzy one. But in today’s charged political climate, it is one the hedgies can ill afford to cross.