LOS ANGELES - A former JPMorgan Securities analyst and two of his longtime friends were taken into custody Tuesday morning after being charged in a federal grand jury indictment that accuses them of participating in an insider trading scheme that netted more than $600,000 profits.

The defendants - Ashish Aggarwal, 27, of San Francisco; Shahriyar Bolandian, 26, of Los Angeles; and Kevan Sadigh, 28, of Los Angeles - surrendered to the FBI Tuesday morning, according to a statement issued by the Office of Public Affairs of the US Department of Justice.

Aggarwal, Bolandian and Sadigh, have been named in an indictment that was unsealed Tuesday morning and charges each defendant with one count of conspiracy to commit securities and tender offer fraud, 13 substantive counts of securities fraud, 13 substantive counts of tender offer fraud and three substantive counts of wire fraud.

In addition, Bolandian is charged with one count of money laundering. The three were to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon before US Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh of the Central District of California.

According to the indictment, between June 2011 and June 2013, when Aggarwal was employed by J.P. Morgan Securities, LLC (JPMS) as an investment banking analyst in its San Francisco office, he allegedly "obtained material, non-public (inside) information about upcoming mergers and acquisitions involving publicly-traded companies".

The indictment alleges that Aggarwal disclosed this information to his friend Bolandian who, in turn, shared the information with another friend Sadigh.

Bolandian and Sadigh then allegedly used the inside information to trade in advance of the public announcements of Integrated Device Technology Inc.'s April 2012 planned acquisition of PLX Technology Inc., and Salesforce.com Inc.'s June 2013 acquisition of ExactTarget Inc.

According to the indictment, through this scheme, Aggarwal, Bolandian and Sadigh netted more than $600,000 in illicit profits, which the defendants allegedly used to, among other things, cover previous trading losses and to repay liabilities incurred by Aggarwal and Bolandian.

The justice department's statement clarified that "the charges and allegations contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty."

The case was investigated by the FBI with the Securities and Exchange Commission providing assistance.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Thomas B.W. Hall and Alexander F. Porter of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Stern of the Central District of California.

If proven guilty and convicted, the three charged face possible prison sentences of 20 years for each fraud count.

JPMorgan declined to comment on the arrests.

The former analyst has the same first and last names as a JPMorgan executive director in Mumbai who isn't involved in the case, reported the Bloomberg.