NEW YORK-A gov­ern­ment in­for­mant at the heart of his­to­ry's biggest in­sid­er trad­ing case told ju­rors yes­ter­day that ob­tain­ing in­side in­for­ma­tion is like get­ting an­swers to a school test be­fore­hand. "There's no way you can flunk," Roomy Khan told a ju­ry hear­ing ev­i­dence against a San Fran­cis­co hedge fund boss.

"You know you're go­ing to get an A-plus." Khan, 53, has long been a cen­tral char­ac­ter in a gov­ern­ment probe of in­sid­er trad­ing in the hedge fund in­dus­try that has re­sult­ed in more than two dozen con­vic­tions, in­clud­ing the down­fall of Sri Lan­ka-born Raj Ra­jarat­nam.

He found­ed a hedge fund that man­aged up to US$7 bil­lion be­fore it col­lapsed with his 2009 ar­rest. He is serv­ing an 11-year prison sen­tence. Khan tes­ti­fied Mon­day that she gave Ra­jarat­nam in­side in­for­ma­tion as far back as 1997.

AP