SAC “a veritable magnet of market cheaters,” the firm and its units permitted a “systematic” insider trading scheme to unfold from 1999 to 2010, activity that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for the firm, owned by its founder, the billionaire stock picker Steven A. Cohen. The indictment cites SAC’s inner workings, citing e-mails indicating that Mr. Cohen and other top executives failed to prevent possible insider trading. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/sac-capital-is-indicted/?hp

SAC, the indictment says, also recruited employees who possessed what the fund called “an edge,” including one trader who was fired from another hedge fund on suspicion of insider trading.

The scheme at SAC, said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, was “substantial, pervasive and on a scale without known precedent in the history of hedge funds.”

Mr. Cohen, 57, was not charged, but the 41-page indictment is a stinging attack on him nonetheless, declaring that he “fostered a culture that focused on not discussing inside information too openly, rather than not seeking or trading on such information in the first place.”

The criminal indictment lists eight former SAC employees who the government said engaged in misconduct while at the fund; six of them have already pleaded guilty to individual criminal charges, and are expected to testify in a trial against SAC.

SAC was open for business on Thursday with Mr. Cohen at the center of the firm’s cavernous trading floor in Stamford, Conn., sifting through information, buying and selling stocks, and trying to make money for his investors.. Banks including Goldman Sachs continued to trade with SAC and finance its operations, though several are discussing the implications that the indictment will have on their relationships, said people with knowledge of those conversations.

While prosecutors could theoretically pursue all of SAC’s money, they have no plans to do so, a person briefed on the matter said. Instead, they are likely to demand that SAC forfeit money that is traceable to any illicit trading, a sum that could reach a few billion dollars.

“In the corporate criminal world, avoiding indictment is the key battleground,” said Alan Vinegrad, a former federal prosecutor now a partner at Covington & Burling. “Once you have the indictment, either it’s a deferred prosecution agreement or you have your work cut out for you.”

At the height of SAC’s powers in 2006 and 2007, Mr. Cohen is reported to have earned about $900 million each year, helping to give the firm a certain mystique. But it also generated whispers about whether the fund routinely crossed the line.