Former Société Générale trader Samarth Agrawal was accused by the US with stealing the company’s computer code for high-frequency trading.

Agrawal, hit with one count of theft of trade secrets, is accused of making copies last June of one part of the code he’d been given access to and another part he hadn’t. Agrawal was arrested yesterday in Manhattan, according to federal prosecutors.

“Over the past several years, the financial institution has spent millions of dollars to develop and maintain a computer system that allows the financial institution to engage in sophisticated, high-speed trading on various securities markets,” according to a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday.

Société Générale hired Agrawal in March 2007 to work as a quantitative analyst in the high-frequency trading group, according to the complaint. He was promoted to trader last April and resigned in November, prosecutors said.

Agrawal’s lawyer, Steven M. Statsinger, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.