Levitt Discounts Mob’s Wall St. Role

A day after disclosure that Wall Street’s self-policing group is investigating stocks allegedly manipulated by organized crime, the nation’s top securities regulator said Wednesday that he believes such mob penetration is “relatively limited.”

Arthur Levitt, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, told senators that the market watchdog agency is “well aware” of some mob-related illicit activity and is making “efforts to get at it.”

Levitt declined to provide specifics during his testimony to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, but he offered to give the panel a closed briefing on the matter at a future date.

“I believe that it’s relatively limited,” Levitt said, referring to infiltration of Wall Street by organized crime. Such activities are “not as pervasive as may have been suggested,” he said.

On Tuesday, the head of the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, which owns the Nasdaq Stock Market, told Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) that the group is investigating stocks of 19 small companies that allegedly have been manipulated by people linked to organized crime.

The self-regulatory body, known as NASD Regulation, has had “significant ongoing investigations of our own” into the companies and several allegedly mob-related brokerages, President Mary Schapiro said in a letter to Dingell.