If the UK's Financial Services Authority is going out, it is going out with guns blazing.

The FSA is presently operating under what The Economist has called a "death sentence," as the Conservatives have vowed to abolish the agency if they win the general election in June. Nevertheless, the FSA continues its newfound aggressiveness against market abuse and insider trading. The FSA announced today that this morning it carried out a massive "swoop" jointly with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in which it searched 16 separate addresses in London, the South East and Oxfordshire. Today's operation is the FSA's largest-ever against what it calls "insider dealing."

In connection with the swoop carried out by no fewer than 143 FSA personnel, plus officers from SOCA, documents and computers have been seized from residential and business premises, and six men have been arrested on suspicion of being involved in a "sophisticated and long-running insider dealing ring." The FSA added that two of the six men arrested were senior professionals at "leading city institutions" and one was a city professional at a hedge fund. The FSA believes that the city professionals passed inside information to traders, who profited off of the tips.

The FSA added that this is the first operation it has carried out jointly with SOCA.