NEW YORK (AP) - The Manhattan District Attorney's office is beefing up efforts to go after financial crimes, already a focus for the office's prosecutors, who work a mile from Wall Street.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announced Feb. 18 that he was hiring federal prosecutor Richard Weber to head the new major-economic-crime bureau. It will combine the office's longtime frauds bureau with an investigative division that has prosecuted such business titans as former Tyco CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski. He was convicted in 2005 of fraud and larceny in a case seen as a symbol of corporate excess.

Weber now heads a federal Justice Department unit that fights money laundering.

Vance says the economic-crimes bureau will work on cases ranging from stock schemes to online frauds.