Preetinder Singh Bharara (; born October 13, 1968) is an Indian-born American attorney and former federal prosecutor who served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. As of 2025, he is a partner at the law firm WilmerHale.
A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia Law School, Bharara worked as an attorney in private practice during his early career. From 2000 to 2005, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney. Bharara then worked as chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer from 2005 to 2009; during this time, Bharara was heavily involved in Schumer's investigation of the 2006 presidential dismissal of U.S. attorneys.
In 2009, Bharara was appointed by President Barack Obama to the position of U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. His office prosecuted the Italian mafia, convicting four out of the Five Families. Bharara similarly headed various counter-terrorism probes and cases, particularly against Al-Qaeda. His office used a variety of unconventional tactics such as wiretapping and asset seizure; he prosecuted nearly 100 Wall Street executives for insider trading and securities fraud using these legal methods. Bharara closed settlements with the four largest banks in the country and shut down multiple hedge funds. Known for his technocratic approach to prosecution, he convicted a number of Democratic and Republican politicians on public corruption charges. Bharara occasionally pursued criminals extraterritorially. Following a 2013 Russian money laundering investigation, Russian officials permanently banned him from entering Russia. The prosecution of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade by his office in 2013 led to a strain in India–United States relations. On March 11, 2017, during the administration of President Donald Trump, Bharara was dismissed after refusing to submit his resignation.
Early life, education, and early career Bharara was born in 1968 in Firozpur, Punjab, India to a Sikh father and a Hindu mother. He and his parents immigrated to the United States in 1970. Bharara became a U.S. citizen at age 12. He grew up in Eatontown in suburban Monmouth County, New JerseyLattman, Peter. "The Fabulous Bharara Boys", The New York Times, June 9, 2011. Accessed August 9, 2012. "He told the audience that he and his brother who grew up in Eatontown, N.J., carved similar paths. Preet, 46, graduated from Harvard College, and Vinnie, 39, from the University of Pennsylvania." and attended Ranney School in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1986.
Bharara received a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1990. He then received a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School in 1993, where he was a member of the Columbia Law Review.
In 1993, Bharara joined the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a litigation associate. In 1996, Bharara joined the firm of Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman, where he did white-collar defense work.Lizz Riggs, Preet Bharara and Mindy Kaling are Harvard Law School's 2014 Class Day Speakers, Harvard Law Today (March 5, 2014). He was an assistant United States Attorney in Manhattan for five years, from 2000 to 2005, bringing criminal cases against the bosses of the Gambino crime family, Colombo crime family, and Asian gangs in New York City. From 2005 to 2009, Bharara served as chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer and played a leading role in the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary investigation into the firings of United States attorneys.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Bharara was nominated to become U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by President Barack Obama on May 15, 2009, and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. His nomination to the post was welcomed across the political spectrum, as he was regarded as an "apolitical and fair-minded" figure.Roger Parloff, Nominee for Manhattan U.S. Attorney: A nonpartisan star, Fortune (August 25, 2009). Bharara was sworn in as U.S. Attorney on August 13, 2009.
During his time as U.S. Attorney, Bharara was named India Abroad's 2011 Person of the Year. In 2012, he was named as one of "The 100 Most Influential People in the World" by Time.The 2012 Time 100, Time, "Preet Bharara". By Viet Dinh. Retrieved April 23, 2012. Bharara was also included in Bloomberg Markets Magazines 2012 "50 Most Influential" list as well as Vanity Fairs 2012 and 2013 annual "New Establishment" lists.
International investigations
Bharara's office sent out agents to more than 25 countries to investigate suspects of arms and narcotics trafficking and terrorists, and to bring them to Manhattan to face charges. One case involved Viktor Bout. Bout was an arms trafficker, who lived in Moscow and had a deal involving selling arms to Colombian terrorists. Bharara argued that this aggressive approach was necessary in post 9/11 era. Defense lawyers criticized the stings, calling Bharara's office "the Southern District of the World". They also argued that American citizens would not appreciate being treated similarly by other countries.
Actions against financial crime Insider trading In 2012, Bharara was featured on a cover of Time magazine entitled "This Man is Busting Wall Street" for his office's prosecutions of insider trading and other financial fraud on Wall Street. From 2009 to 2012 (and ongoing), Bharara's office oversaw the Galleon Group insider trading investigation against Raj Rajaratnam, Rajat Gupta, Anil Kumar and more than 60 others. Rajaratnam was convicted at trial on 14 counts related to insider trading. Bharara is said to have "reaffirmed his office’s leading role in pursuing corporate crime with this landmark insider trading case, which relied on aggressive prosecutorial methods and unprecedented tactics."
In 2011 when hedge fund portfolio manager Chip Skowron pleaded guilty to insider trading, Bharara said: "Chip Skowron is the latest example of a portfolio manager willing to pay for proprietary, non-public information that gave him an illegal trading edge over the average investor. The integrity of our market is damaged by people who engage in insider trading...." Skowron was sent to prison for five years. Bharara has often spoken publicly about his work and written an op-ed about the culture surrounding corporate crime and its effect on market confidence and business risk.
After 85 straight convictions for insider-trading cases, he finally lost one on July 17, 2014. This was when a jury acquitted Rajaratnam's younger brother, Rengan, of such charges."The Limits of the Law in Insider Trading". The New York Times (July 18, 2014). Retrieved March 18, 2015.
On October 22, 2015, Bharara dropped seven insider-trading cases two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to a review a lower court decision that would make it harder to pursue wrongful-trading cases. The conviction of Michael S. Steinberg was dropped; Steinberg was the highest-ranking officer of SAC Capital Advisors who had previously been convicted of insider trading.
In 2013, Bharara announced criminal and civil charges against one of the largest and most successful hedge-fund firms in the United States, SAC Capital Advisors LP, and its founder Steven A. Cohen. At USD$1.8 billion, it was the largest settlement ever for insider trading, and the firm also agreed to close down.
Citibank Citibank was charged numerous times by Bharara's office and other federal prosecutors. In 2012, the bank reached a settlement with Bharara's office to pay $158 million for misleading the government into insuring risky loans. Bharara also made a criminal inquiry into Citibank's Mexican banking unit In 2014, Citi settled with federal prosecutors for $7 billion for ignoring warnings on risky loans.
JPMorgan Chase Almost as soon as he took office, Bharara began investigating the role of Bernie Madoff's primary banker, JPMorgan Chase. Eventually, Bharara and JPMorgan reached a deferred prosecution agreement that called for JPMorgan to forfeit $1.7 billion—the largest forfeiture ever demanded from a bank in American history—to settle charges that it and its predecessors violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to alert state and federal authorities about Madoff's actions.JP Morgan to pay $1.7bn to victims of the Madoff fraud BBC January 7, 2014
Bharara's office also handled the criminal prosecutions of several employees at Madoff’s firm and their associates. They were convicted by a jury on March 24, 2014.
Bank of America In 2012, federal prosecutors under Bharara sued Bank of America for $1 billion, accusing the bank of carrying out a mortgage scheme that defrauded the government during the depths of the financial crisis in 2008. In 2013, the jury found Bank of America liable for selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac thousands of defective loans in the first mortgage-fraud case brought by the U.S. government to go to trial. The civil verdict also found the bank’s Countrywide Financial unit and former Countrywide executive Rebecca Mairone liable. However, in 2016 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the finding of fact by the jury that low-quality mortgages were supplied by Countrywide to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac supported only "intentional breach of contract," not fraud. The action, for civil fraud, relied on provisions of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act. This decision turned on lack of intent to defraud at the time the contract to supply mortgages was made.
Russian money laundering fraud In 2013, Bharara began investigating a money laundering fraud scheme in New York City operated by a Russian criminal organization. The alleged fraud links a $230 million Russian tax refund fraud scheme from 2008 to eleven U.S. real estate corporations. The underlying tax refund fraud was first discovered by whistleblower and Russian lawyer. His name was Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested under tax evasion charges, and within a year he was found dead in his prison cell—a suspicious circumstance.
In April 2013, Bharara authorized the FBI to raid the apartment of businessman Alimzhan Tokhtakhunov in Trump Tower.
On April 13, 2013, Bharara was on a list released by the Russian Federation containing Americans banned from entering the country over their alleged human rights violations. The list was a direct response to the so-called Magnitsky list made public by the United States, which included 18 Russians who were subject to asset freezes and visa bans.
On September 10, 2013, with help from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and Cyrus Vance Jr., the District Attorney for New York County, Bharara's office announced that they had filed a civil forfeiture complaint, freezing $24 million in assets.
Holocaust survivor fund fraud During his first year in office, Bharara charged 17 managers and employees of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims for defrauding Germany $42.5 million by creating thousands of false benefit applications for people who did not suffer in the Holocaust. This fraud, which had been occurring for 16 years, was related to the $400 million that Germany paid out each year to Holocaust survivors.
Art fraud