An executive at a Mountain View firm that provides expert industry consultants to hedge funds and other investors was arrested this morning as part of a widespread federal investigation into illegal trading on insider information.

Don Ching Trang Chu, a 56-year-old executive with the expert-networking firm Primary Global Research, who lives in Somerset, N.J., was charged with securities and wire fraud after officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York said he helped a hedge fund get confidential tips from technology company employees.

The charges against Chu don’t specifically mention Primary Global Research, referring to his employer only as the “Firm,” and information about Chu’s relationship to the Mountain View company was removed from its website this morning.

But earlier this week, the site identified Chu as “PGR’s bridge to Asia experts and data sources,” adding that he was a 25-year veteran of the data-communications industry, having worked at Bell Labs for more than a decade. It also noted that Chu “intimately understands the wireless broadband communications industry and has deep connections and relationships in the technology industry.”

Primary Global Research’s CEO, Unni Narayanan, could not be reached for a comment.

The Wall Street Journal on Friday identified Primary Global Research as one focus of a broad federal insider-trading investigation, which is partly examining the growing prevalence of so-called expert networks, which help investors gather industry information from corporate employees, doctors and other specialists.

According to the charges against Chu, he arranged for the firm’s consultants “to provide inside information regarding certain public companies’ earnings releases for the purpose of executing profitable securities transactions.”

In 2008, Chu established a relationship with Richard Choo-Beng Lee, who worked for an unidentified hedge fund, and who is now cooperating with federal investigators after pleading guilty to conspiracy and securities fraud. In July 2009, the charges allege, Chu facilitated a consultation between Lee and a person identified in the federal complaint only as “CC-1,” who worked at an unidentified publicly traded tech company.

“During that consultation, CC-1 provided Lee with revenue numbers, average sales prices, unit sales for different product lines, gross margin figures and revenue forecasts for the tech company,” the charges read.

Lee later determined that CC-1’s information had been “spot on,” according to the charges, which said the firm paid the consultant $200,000 between January 2008 and March 2010.

Chu also was accused of putting Lee in touch with another consultant who worked at Broadcom. In a later interview with the FBI, the charges allege, Chu told agents that the Broadcom employee probably provided a hedge fund manager with Broadcom’s revenue numbers before the official end of the company’s quarter. It is generally illegal for top employees to disclose details about their publicly traded companies before that information is disclosed publicly.

Contact Steve Johnson at 408-920-5043.