AMERICA’S watchdogs are moving their insider-dealing investigations out of the boardroom and into the bedroom as an increasing number of couples are accused of illegal stock-market trading.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), America’s top financial regulator, has already announced investigations into seven cases involving married couples this year. In 2006 there was one.

In some cases regulators have accused a couple of working together to execute allegedly illegal trades. In others one spouse stands accused of misappropriating confidential information from the other and using it to turn a quick profit.

“In some cases the lure of instant profits can prove too much for people and they decide to take the risk. In other cases it’s a real scheme. We’ve found both those situations with couples,” said John Stark, chief of the SEC office of internet enforcement.

“The technology is getting better and better for catching people. Some people obviously believe they can use different names but the reality is we will catch you.” There are several factors behind the rise, said Terry Leap, professor of management at Clemson University in South Carolina and author of Dishonest Dollars: The Dynamics of White-Collar Crime.

“Dual-career couples were less prevalent in the past. Now there are many couples with access to inside information and the means to do something about it,” he said.

Leap said that e-mail, the internet and other electronic forms of communication had also made it easier for people to get hold of sensitive information. But he added that, in large part, the increase in the number of cases was because of a clampdown by regulators.

“The SEC doesn’t give out figures on how many insider-dealing cases it is investigating, but my sense of it is that they are much more active in their investigations,” he said.

The SEC was unavailable for comment. But among the cases brought this year, Christopher Balkenhol, a former vice-president at Oracle, agreed to settle charges that he profited from insider dealing and paid nearly $200,000 (£100,000) in penalties.

The charges came after his wife, Carolyn, executive assistant to Oracle’s chief executive officer, mentioned merger-related meetings to her husband.

In May the SEC charged Hong Kong couple Kan King Wong and Charlotte Ka On Wong Leung of buying more than 400,000 shares of Dow Jones & Company before News Corporation’s bid became public. Leung’s father, Michael Leung Kai Hung, has business and social ties to David Li, a banker and Dow Jones director. The agency says they made more than $8m in profit.

In July the SEC filed civil charges against Shane Bashir Suman, a former employee of MDS, a Toronto medical-device maker. The regulator claims that Suman and his wife made $1m after he stole confidential information about the company’s impending offer for Molecular Devices and traded Molecular shares.

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