New Complaint Against Ex-Prudential Brokers

Five former Prudential Securities brokers and their manager used fake identities and other tactics to help hedge funds engage in more than $1.3 billion worth of improper mutual fund trades, the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a complaint.

The allegations contained in the complaint filed late Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston provide new details in the fraud case against the former Prudential employees.

The SEC initially accused the former Prudential employees of wrongdoing in November but was forced to refile when a federal judge said the complaint wasn’t specific enough. The new filing alleges that the five brokers and their manager used different account names, broker identification numbers and misspellings of their own names to avoid detection of the trades that would otherwise have been rejected. The SEC said the trades generated more than $5 million in commissions for the brokers.

Prudential said it was cooperating with investigators.