2 charged with illegal Dow Jones trades

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a civil complaint against a Hong Kong couple alleging improper trading of 415,000 shares of Dow Jones stock within two weeks of News Corp.'s announcement that it would make a bid for the company, an SEC official told CNN Tuesday.

In addition, Cheryl Scarboro, associate director for the Division of Enforcement for the SEC, said the SEC's investigation will continue and "there may well be other charges of other insider trading allegations."

The complaint was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The court granted an order to freeze $23 million of the assets of husband-and-wife pair Kan King Wong and Charlotte Ka On Wong Leung, Scarboro said.

The complaint alleges the couple profited $8 million through improper trades of Dow Jones (down $0.52 to $54.99, Charts) stock. The trades were brokered by the Merrill Lynch (Charts, Fortune 500) branch office in Hong Kong. Scarboro said the complaint does not indicate if the couple is or had at one time been employed by Dow Jones, News Corp. or Merrill Lynch.

"In a walk through the funding of the trades, evidence indicates that one portion of the money came from her father and that other money was transferred into that account as well," Scarboro told CNN.

"What we've alleged is that circumstantial evidence indicated possible insider trading in the securities of Dow Jones and that circumstantial evidence includes the aberrational nature of these trades in these accounts."

She said she did not know if the couple would be extradited to the United States. A preliminary injunction hearing is set for on June 18 in New York, she said.

The New York attorney general's office would not comment on published reports that a subpoena has been issued to Dow Jones related to insider trading allegations ahead of the News Corp. bid announcement last week.

Howard Hoffman, spokesman for Dow Jones, said "The SEC requested information and the New York attorney general issued a subpoena. We're cooperating with authorities."

He would not say what the SEC and New York attorney general's offices are investigating and would not confirm reports that those offices are looking into suspicious options trading ahead of the announcement.

"I'm not discussing what the subpoena contains or what information the SEC requested," Hoffman said.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (Charts) made an unsolicited bid for financial news services company Dow Jones last Tuesday in a deal valued at about $5 billion.