NEW YORK, May 5: Hafiz Muhammad Zubair Naseem, a Pakistani citizen who was arrested on Friday and charged with heading an insider trading ring from April 2006 to February 2007, was denied bail by a federal court in Manhattan.

Judge Theodore H. Katz said that Mr Naseem, met ‘virtually every criteria’ as a flight risk.

Mr Naseem, 37, was arrested on Thursday and charged with 26 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud. He is accused of leaking details about nine deals, including the largest-ever $45 billion leveraged buyout of TXU.

Credit Suisse was an adviser on the nine deals.

In a report, the New York Times said that according to prosecutors, Mr Naseem gleaned details by virtue of his job, sometimes from a printer near his desk. He then called an unnamed official at a financial firm in Pakistan, who executed trades before the deals were announced.

If convicted, Mr Naseem faces 25 to 33 years in prison, Joshua Klein, assistant US attorney prosecuting the case, said.

Mr Naseem will be held in jail until his next hearing on May 17. He was fired from the Credit Suisse on Thursday.

Marc L. Mukasey, one of Mr Naseem’s lawyers, said that his client arrived in the US in 2002, attended business school at the New York University. He is married and lives in a rented home in Rye Brook, N.Y.

According to Mr Mukasey, one of Mr Naseem’s daughters suffers from cerebral palsy.

Naseem posed a potential flight risk as a foreign national facing a prison sentence, with more family and financial assets abroad than in the United States.

Since Mr Naseem holds only a worker’s visa, he probably would be deported if found guilty, Mr Klein told the news reporters.