Cleaning up by thinking dirty

A few years ago, Preet Bharara thought that his brother had lost his way.

Mr. Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has made a reputation for the number of insider trading cases that his office has won: 43 convictions in less than two years.

About six years ago, his younger brother, Vinit, called him to say that he was going to sell diapers for a living.

“Oh, really? Diapers? What, door to door?” Preet asked his brother.

“No, on the Internet,” his brother answered.

Preet Bharara, 42, was skeptical about his brother’s career move. For a while, he had thought that the younger man might follow in his footsteps.

Preet Bharara graduated from Harvard and earned his law degree from Columbia. His legal career has included stints as an assistant U.S. attorney and as chief counsel for Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Vinit Bharara, 39, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and followed his brother to Columbia Law School. In fact, he did practice law, but then left to start an Internet company called The Pit, a sports card trading company that eventually was bought by Topps Co.

So, while Preet Bharara has chased crooks on Wall Street for the past couple of years, his brother has hawked diapers online.

And then he got the phone call.

As Preet Bharara related it to an audience of financial reporters in New York recently, it went something like this: “Hey, bro, how’s that U.S. attorney thing working out for you? I just sold my company to Amazon for $540 million.”

Vinit Bharara and his partners had turned their company, Diapers.com, into a $180 million a year powerhouse that sold diapers and all other types of baby gear. The site was noted for its customer service and free shipping.

Preet Bharara was stunned. It turns out that there is a lot more money to be had cleaning up after babies than cleaning up Wall Street.