SEC Says It Has Located Galleon Fugitive Deep Shah Living in Mumbai

Deep Shah, a former Moody’s Investors Service Inc. analyst who was declared a fugitive two years ago in the case of Galleon Group LLC founder Raj Rajaratnam, has been located in Mumbai, according to court papers.

Shah is accused of tipping Roomy Khan, a former Intel Corp. (INTC) executive, about the takeover of Hilton Hotels Corp. by Blackstone Group LP. (BX) Shah was charged in November of 2009 by prosecutors in the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and he was also sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2009.

The SEC said in an affidavit filed today that a bailiff in Mumbai located Shah’s residence and left an amended complaint on March 22, 2010. The Indian authorities said they spoke with a servant at his residence, located in the Juhu neighborhood in western Mumbai.

“He was not found on my enquiries with his servant,” the bailiff said in an affidavit filed with the judge in the SEC’s case against Galleon. “I was informed that the defendant had gone out and no fixed time to be determined.”

The bailiff said he left a copy of the summons and documents “thus affixed to the outside door of the flat.”

Hotel Stocks

When Khan pleaded guilty in October 2009, she said she bought stock in July 2007 based on tips about a pending merger provided by a ratings service analyst covering hotel stocks who got the information from the target company. Khan said she was trying to profit from information from a person who had breached a duty to his employer.

“He was in the meeting with the potential company which got acquired,” Khan said. “He worked for a rating agency.”

Shah is a former analyst at Moody’s.

The SEC also today filed papers with the court noting that Shah is in default in the case, having failed to file an answer to the charges or to make an appearance.

A lawyer for Shah couldn’t be located. Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for Bharara, declined comment. Shah denied being the source of the Hilton tips in an interview with the Wall Street Journal in New Delhi in October 2009.

Rajaratnam, 53, is scheduled to go on trial March 8, charged with being at the center of the largest crackdown on hedge-fund insider trading in U.S. history. The Sri Lankan-born billionaire is charged with earning $45 million from confidential information leaked by corporate insiders and hedge fund traders.

If convicted, he could spend as long as 20 years in prison on the fraud charges. He denies wrongdoing, saying he based his trades on Galleon research.

The case is U.S. v. Khan, 09-cr-00991, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in New York at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Pickering at jpickering@bloomberg.net